Elsie Wright
[Frances and the Flying Fairy]

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Images(2)

Artist Elsie Wright(English, 1901–1988)English, 1901–1988

CultureEnglish

Titles

[Frances and the Flying Fairy]

Date1920

MediumGelatin silver print with applied color

DimensionsImage: 7 11/16 × 5 9/16 in. (19.5 × 14.2 cm)
Sheet: 8 × 6 in. (20.3 × 15.2 cm)
Mount: 8 × 6 in. (20.3 × 15.2 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Photo Forum 2019

Object number2019.58

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionIn 1917, in one of the greatest photographic hoaxes of all time, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her cousin, 9-year-old Frances Griffiths, claimed to have photographed the fairies who lived by a stream behind their home in the village of Cottingley, Yorkshire. Little did they know that their practical joke would stir enormous controversy and fool such eminent figures as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who encouraged them three years later to capture additional images of the fairies, including this one.
Provenance[Dominic Winter Auctioneers, Cirencester, England, April 11, 2019, Lot 341]; purchased by MFAH, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in pencil, recto, lower right corner: C
Inscribed in pencil, verso, center: [illegible mark]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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