Doyle’s Mistake
But Prince aimed his most scathing criticism at Doyle. During his lectures, Doyle presented an image captured in ectoplasm, then photographed as evidence of the otherworldly realm. He called the “most remarkable spirit photograph he had ever seen.” The image is of a bearded man, flanked by a bevy of naked children. Four mothers identified the children as their own, in baby form.
Price, however, had something to say about Doyle’s favored image. “Do London spiritualists never visit their National Gallery?” He identified the image as the uppermost portion of Murillo’s Holy Family, with the children as the angelic cherubs. “But I will not dispute that this is the best spirit photograph ever,” Price says, making light of other spirit photographs that are even more poorly executed.
