The 1905 silent film La Fee Aux Fleurs (The Flower Fairy) is as brief as a TikTok, but bursts with charm. A woman dressed in full Louis XV splendour creates a paradise of flowers with wafts of her hands. The garden spreads its petals and flickers with butterflies, until one scarlet pansy reveals the Flower Fairy at its heart.

Why is she wearing a Marquise de Pompadour get-up? By 1905, it was an established tradition for fairytale figures to wear these kinds of costumes on stages and in story illustrations, so her outfit codes her as magical for the audience even before she starts conjuring a garden from thin air. Segundo de Chomón, a Spanish silent-film director, created the special effects.

The Flower Fairy is one of more than 135 nitrate films collected by the Marvellous Corricks, a family of vaudeville entertainers who toured the world with their variety show, which included these silent films.

Find out more about our restoration of The Flower Fairy