Beschreibung:

The Cottingley Fairies. Frances Griffiths’ folding quarter-plate `Cameo' camera manufactured by W. Butcher & Sons, London, 1915-1920, with Lukos II symmetrical lens back, some signs of age wear, back missing, 14 x 11 x 5 cm (folded) (Qty: 1) Provenance: Mrs Christine Lynch, daughter of Frances Griffiths. ‘Two good quarter-plate [‘Cameo’] cameras were bought, one for each of the girls, and then I went to Illingworth’s factory for the supply of two dozen plates … I went off, too, to Cottingley again, taking the two camera and plates from London, and met the family and explained to the two girls the simple working of the cameras, giving one to each to keep’, Edward L. Gardner, Fairies: The Cottingley Fairies and their Sequel, 4th revised edition, Theosophical Publishing House, 1966, pp. 24-5. This historic camera was given to Frances Griffiths by Edward Gardner and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1920. In 1972 Elsie sold her father’s ‘Midg’ camera (used for taking the first two Cottingley Fairies photographs in 1917) and the ‘Cameo’ camera (used in 1920) through Sotheby’s. The cameras now both reside at the National Media Museum, Bradford. It had been thought that this camera was the one used for at least one of the photographs taken by Frances in 1920, ‘The Fairy Bower’; and possibly the one of Elsie receiving a bouquet of flowers. However, from family papers it now appears probable that this camera was not received by Frances until October 1920, so shortly after these three final fairy photographs were taken in August 1920. Subsequently, Frances used this camera for family snapshots. This does contradict Gardner’s own versions of events as noted above and the intriguing possibility that this did take the fifth photograph in the series, and the one that Frances maintained was genuine right up until her death.