LACK OF INTEREST: Anthony Gallagher, of Dunbar Sloane, with the J G Jackson signed Gallipoli print that failed to sell.

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Anthony Gallagher

A signed snapshot of a World War I digger helping a fellow soldier to safety on “Simpson’s donkey” has failed to sell at auction, after being tipped to fetch thousands of dollars.

The photo of a wounded soldier carried by a donkey away from the battlefield in Gallipoli was used as the blueprint by Horace Moore-Jones when he painted a now-famous series of paintings, one of them known as Simpson and His Donkey.

In a strange twist, the man who took the photograph – former Sergeant JG Jackson of Dunedin – revealed to the newspaper Weekend in 1961 that John Simpson had been killed by a sniper earlier and was not the stretcher bearer. It was, in fact, Richard Alexander Henderson.

As part of the military collection being auctioned last week, Dunbar Sloane was selling a print of that photo signed by Mr Henderson.

Auctioneer and valuer Anthony Gallagher said it was rare for copies of the photo to come up for sale but to have a signed copy “makes a huge amount of difference”.

The exact history of the photograph is unclear. It was bought at an Auckland Dunbar Sloane auction about eight years ago and was now being re-sold.

Moore-Jones paintings from the photograph sold for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” but the photo was expected to reach between $4500 and $6500, Mr Gallagher said.

However, it did not reach the reserve price and would probably be returned to the current owner, he said. “Strangely, there was a distinct lack of interest.”

Other World War I memorabilia, including diaries and photos, was bought by the Alexander Turnbull Library.

In the 1961 article Mr Jackson also revealed that Moore-Jones used “painters’ licence” by placing the soldiers on a precipice, rather than where the picture was taken, between Anzac Cove and Walkers Ridge.

The position of the wounded soldier was also given some artistic licence.

“I met Dick Henderson on the way from Walkers to the cove with his patient,” Mr Jackson said in a letter to Weekend. “I said, `hold it a minute and I’ll snap you, Dick’.”

“The sea is in the background and a destroyer can be faintly seen to the left of the donkey’s ear.”

He originally decided not to clear up the mistake so as to not “detract from the great name Simpson had”.

According to history website history.net.nz, the image was Moore-Jones’ most widely-recognised work.

The Gallipoli campaign began on April 25, 1915 and lasted nine months. By the time it was over 120,000 men had died, including 2721 New Zealanders, about a quarter of those who had landed on the peninsula.