This is a great question. The Wiki article has serious flaws, but it does have some great dates, that provide clear evidence that the tradition of decorating gardens with these sorts of supernatural beings was widespread and dates to at least the early seventeenth century. Evidence about Roman garden statuary is interesting, but it would be incorrect to link them historically without firm evidence. At present I think all we can say is that it is coincidental.

Although I know of no clear evidence, it is easy to imagine that the widespread story of 'The New Suit' - Migratory Legend 7015 - either inspired or reinforced the appearance of this sort of garden statuary. In the story, household or barn chores are conducted by one or more supernatural beings (sometimes there is a pair or a trio of the entities). in a Cornish variant (and in an excerpt from my book manuscript due to be released next summer):

The legend describes how in the morning a farmer finds that his grain has been threshed in his barn the previous night. The following evening, he peered through a crack in the barn door and saw ‘a little fellow, clad in a tattered suit of green, wielding the “dreshel” (flail) with astonishing vigour, and beating the floor with blows so rapid that the eye could not follow the motion of the implement.’

The farmer resolved to have a new suit of green made so that he could give it to his supernatural helper as thanks. The following afternoon, he left the new clothes in the barn. With darkness, he crept back to look again through the crack in the door. ‘He was just in time to see the elf put on the suit, which was no sooner accomplished than, looking down on himself admiringly, he sung’ the following:

Piskie fine, and piskie gay;

Piskie now will fly away.

Aside from the use of the specifically-Cornish term ‘piskie’, the story fits the typical pattern of what could be found from Scandinavia to Britain. ...

Readers may recognize this legend as the source of J. K. Rowling’s elfin character named Dobby, the sad creature who is enslaved until someone gives him a new set of clothes. Rowling drew directly on folklore: Briggs – who may have been Rowling’s source – describes ‘Dobby’ as ‘a friendly name for a hobgoblin in Yorkshire and Lancashire. He is very like a brownie.’ Jacqueline Simpson refers to this aspect of Rowling’s writings in her essay, ‘On the Ambiguity of Elves’, Folklore, 122 (April 2011) 77. Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, 103.

So, it is easy to see that there was a widespread legend and associated belief that supernatural beings occasionally helped households and could be very beneficial. At least one parallel instance of the folk creating a statue of a helpful spirit occurred in the American West where miners would fashion a clay Tommyknocker to serve as an underground guardian - and to whom offerings of food could be made. So the idea of creating one in a garden does not challenge the imagination, and it seems reasonable to conclude that at least early on people understood that there were stories about these sorts of entities and that it might elicit some good will to have these sorts of figurines. That's not to say that there was actual belief associated with them - at least eventually - but these stories could have reinforced the practice.

The idea that they should be called gnomes is using a term that is a late arrival in the English language, an importation from Scandinavia. For example, my grandfather crafted these sorts of statues for his California garden in the 1930s, and he called them 'brownies' using a term common for these household guardians in England, and that's a term one would expect until later in the twentieth century and particular until the 1977 publication of a book by the same name.

edit: Here is an image of one of my grandfather's 'brownies' ca 1933, the Bay Area, California (at the feet of the girl on the right).

This is a great question. The Wiki article has serious flaws, but it does have some great dates, that provide clear evidence that the tradition of decorating gardens with these sorts of supernatural beings was widespread and dates to at least the early seventeenth century. Evidence about Roman garden statuary is interesting, but it would be incorrect to link them historically without firm evidence. At present I think all we can say is that it is coincidental.

Although I know of no clear evidence, it is easy to imagine that the widespread story of 'The New Suit' - Migratory Legend 7015 - either inspired or reinforced the appearance of this sort of garden statuary. In the story, household or barn chores are conducted by one or more supernatural beings (sometimes there is a pair or a trio of the entities). in a Cornish variant (and in an excerpt from my book manuscript due to be released next summer):

The legend describes how in the morning a farmer finds that his grain has been threshed in his barn the previous night. The following evening, he peered through a crack in the barn door and saw ‘a little fellow, clad in a tattered suit of green, wielding the “dreshel” (flail) with astonishing vigour, and beating the floor with blows so rapid that the eye could not follow the motion of the implement.’

The farmer resolved to have a new suit of green made so that he could give it to his supernatural helper as thanks. The following afternoon, he left the new clothes in the barn. With darkness, he crept back to look again through the crack in the door. ‘He was just in time to see the elf put on the suit, which was no sooner accomplished than, looking down on himself admiringly, he sung’ the following:

Piskie fine, and piskie gay;

Piskie now will fly away.

Aside from the use of the specifically-Cornish term ‘piskie’, the story fits the typical pattern of what could be found from Scandinavia to Britain. ...

Readers may recognize this legend as the source of J. K. Rowling’s elfin character named Dobby, the sad creature who is enslaved until someone gives him a new set of clothes. Rowling drew directly on folklore: Briggs – who may have been Rowling’s source – describes ‘Dobby’ as ‘a friendly name for a hobgoblin in Yorkshire and Lancashire. He is very like a brownie.’ Jacqueline Simpson refers to this aspect of Rowling’s writings in her essay, ‘On the Ambiguity of Elves’, Folklore, 122 (April 2011) 77. Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, 103.

So, it is easy to see that there was a widespread legend and associated belief that supernatural beings occasionally helped households and could be very beneficial. At least one parallel instance of the folk creating a statue of a helpful spirit occurred in the American West where miners would fashion a clay Tommyknocker to serve as an underground guardian - and to whom offerings of food could be made. So the idea of creating one in a garden does not challenge the imagination, and it seems reasonable to conclude that at least early on people understood that there were stories about these sorts of entities and that it might elicit some good will to have these sorts of figurines. That's not to say that there was actual belief associated with them - at least eventually - but these stories could have reinforced the practice.

The idea that they should be called gnomes is using a term that is a late arrival in the English language, an importation from Scandinavia. For example, my grandfather crafted these sorts of statues for his California garden in the 1930s, and he called them 'brownies' using a term common for these household guardians in England, and that's a term one would expect until later in the twentieth century and particular until the 1977 publication of a book by the same name.

The ultimate origins of the garden gnome seem to be somewhat murky, which I will circle back to, after looking at the more concrete part. The English speaking world was introduced to the Garden Gnome by Charles Edmund Isham, an English gardener, who brought 21 terracotta gnomes with him from Germany. The figures were not created as garden decorations, but rather figurines intended to decorate the drawing room and hold up matchboxes. Whether the German-made figurines were previously used for gardens is somewhat unclear, but certainly doesn't seem to be the primary role. Initially bought for internal decoration, Isham soon decided to arrange them as miners for the miniature mountain scene that he created in his garden, setting them up in whimsical arrangements. Isham, an eccentric spiritualist, described his acquisitions as 'apotropaic wardens', and the presentation of these folkloric figures was also well grounded in Romantascist thought of the period - Isham not being the only English gardner of the time who believed his landscape inhabited by supernatural beings such as fairies, even if the first to place some literal figures to represent them. Although a dubious claim, Isham claimed that his was the first garden outside of Japan - which he was consciously imitating - to be decorated with figurines (making a clear differentiation between those and statues, of course). The exact year of the arrangement being made is unclear, with his garden project beginning in 1847 and the gnomes added some time after 1850.

Isham's garden, as with many of the period, was open to the public on Sundays, and visitors were apparently charmed by the quirky display and eventually came to imitate it. Those adopting them of course were not Isham's fellow aristocrats, who considered it to be rather gauche (his daughter got rid of the gnomes after his death), but rather members of the middle-class. Mostly made in Germany, the center of production of the little "Gartenzwerge" came to be Thuringia, Germany, under August Heissner, who started his factory and heavily marketed the garden ornaments made there - Isham himself had never done much to promote them even though he was a trailblazer - and the commercial publications being an important part of spreading the word. They were even then, as now, considered fairly tasteless by most, although lacking in the ironic love of kitsch that the current generation gives it.

Now, of course, where did the gnome come from before 1847? As /u/itsallfolklore has already touched on... we don't know exactly. As mentioned, Isham's gnomes were intended for inside decoration, and these "house gnomes" date at least to the late 18th century in Germany, and gnome-like statues are found in 17th century Scandinavia. It seems that by the 1840s, some of the gnomes being made in Germany were being made with the intention of outdoor display, but what led to this shift doesn't seem clear.

There are several theories which try to connect them to earlier traditions but without clear cut evidence. Connecting them to dwarf statues in the commedia dell’arte style of the 17th-18th centuries is offered up, as are deeper connections to Roman tradition, specifically statues of Priapus, tying the explicit phallic aspect of his statuary with the implicit red hats of the gnomes. This all comes off as fairly unsupported speculation though, and it is much easier to look to more recent folkloric beliefs which IAF touched on. Certainly, that is the immediate origin which we should look to for Isham's presentation. All in all, it seems to be rather unclear though, since, as summed up by one recent paper I was able to dig up, "Garden gnomes have long been ignored by garden historians, and have only recently been gaining academic attention, primarily in England". It would seem that their complete, authoritative history still remains to be written.

What little reading I was able to dig up on this topic, which really requires piecing together from each is as follows.

• Carter, Tom. The Victorian Garden. Bell & Hyman, 1984.

• Dinkelacker, Horst. 1996. The renaissance of the german garden gnome. Journal of Popular Culture 30, (3) (Winter): 27

• Drower, George. Garden Heroes and Villains. The History Press, 2006

• Duggan, Ian C. "The Cultural History of the Garden Gnome in New Zealand." Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 36, no. 1 (2016): 78-88.

• Emanuel Mayer. "From Silver Cups to Garden Gnomes: Toward a Contextual Reception of Standardized Images." Arethusa 45, no. 3 (2012): 283-303.

• Londos, Eva. 2006. "KITSCH IS DEAD--LONG LIVE GARDEN GNOMES." Home Cultures 3, no. 3: 293-306

• There is also "Garden Gnomes: A History" by Way Twigs, but have no way to access it, but it does appear to be a more poppy history that an academic one.

The ultimate origins of the garden gnome seem to be somewhat murky, which I will circle back to, after looking at the more concrete part. The English speaking world was introduced to the Garden Gnome by Charles Edmund Isham, an English gardener, who brought 21 terracotta gnomes with him from Germany. The figures were not created as garden decorations, but rather figurines intended to decorate the drawing room and hold up matchboxes. Whether the German-made figurines were previously used for gardens is somewhat unclear, but certainly doesn't seem to be the primary role. Initially bought for internal decoration, Isham soon decided to arrange them as miners for the miniature mountain scene that he created in his garden, setting them up in whimsical arrangements. Isham, an eccentric spiritualist, described his acquisitions as 'apotropaic wardens', and the presentation of these folkloric figures was also well grounded in Romantascist thought of the period - Isham not being the only English gardner of the time who believed his landscape inhabited by supernatural beings such as fairies, even if the first to place some literal figures to represent them. Although a dubious claim, Isham claimed that his was the first garden outside of Japan - which he was consciously imitating - to be decorated with figurines (making a clear differentiation between those and statues, of course). The exact year of the arrangement being made is unclear, with his garden project beginning in 1847 and the gnomes added some time after 1850.

Isham's garden, as with many of the period, was open to the public on Sundays, and visitors were apparently charmed by the quirky display and eventually came to imitate it. Those adopting them of course were not Isham's fellow aristocrats, who considered it to be rather gauche (his daughter got rid of the gnomes after his death), but rather members of the middle-class. Mostly made in Germany, the center of production of the little "Gartenzwerge" came to be Thuringia, Germany, under August Heissner, who started his factory and heavily marketed the garden ornaments made there - Isham himself had never done much to promote them even though he was a trailblazer - and the commercial publications being an important part of spreading the word. They were even then, as now, considered fairly tasteless by most, although lacking in the ironic love of kitsch that the current generation gives it.

Now, of course, where did the gnome come from before 1847? As /u/itsallfolklore has already touched on... we don't know exactly. As mentioned, Isham's gnomes were intended for inside decoration, and these "house gnomes" date at least to the late 18th century in Germany, and gnome-like statues are found in 17th century Scandinavia. It seems that by the 1840s, some of the gnomes being made in Germany were being made with the intention of outdoor display, but what led to this shift doesn't seem clear.

There are several theories which try to connect them to earlier traditions but without clear cut evidence. Connecting them to dwarf statues in the commedia dell’arte style of the 17th-18th centuries is offered up, as are deeper connections to Roman tradition, specifically statues of Priapus, tying the explicit phallic aspect of his statuary with the implicit red hats of the gnomes. This all comes off as fairly unsupported speculation though, and it is much easier to look to more recent folkloric beliefs which IAF touched on. Certainly, that is the immediate origin which we should look to for Isham's presentation. All in all, it seems to be rather unclear though, since, as summed up by one recent paper I was able to dig up, "Garden gnomes have long been ignored by garden historians, and have only recently been gaining academic attention, primarily in England". It would seem that their complete, authoritative history still remains to be written.

What little reading I was able to dig up on this topic, which really requires piecing together from each is as follows.

• Carter, Tom. The Victorian Garden. Bell & Hyman, 1984.

• Dinkelacker, Horst. 1996. The renaissance of the german garden gnome. Journal of Popular Culture 30, (3) (Winter): 27

• Drower, George. Garden Heroes and Villains. The History Press, 2006

• Duggan, Ian C. "The Cultural History of the Garden Gnome in New Zealand." Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 36, no. 1 (2016): 78-88.

• Emanuel Mayer. "From Silver Cups to Garden Gnomes: Toward a Contextual Reception of Standardized Images." Arethusa 45, no. 3 (2012): 283-303.

• Londos, Eva. 2006. "KITSCH IS DEAD--LONG LIVE GARDEN GNOMES." Home Cultures 3, no. 3: 293-306

• There is also "Garden Gnomes: A History" by Way Twigs, but have no way to access it, but it does appear to be a more poppy history that an academic one.