Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three Original Peter Rabbit Books between 1901 and 1913. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.

From childhood, Beatrix Potter studied and sketched the old furnishings and oak-panelled rooms of the houses she visited. She often depicted favourite pieces of furniture in her book illustrations; for example, the long-case clock and 'Welsh' dresser in her Lake District home at Hill Top appear in The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. In later life, Beatrix Potter became a farmer and a passionate advocate for the preservation of the English countryside. She developed a keen interest in buying and restoring traditional Lake District farmhouses and in collecting and researching English regional furniture.

Camfield Place in the village of Essendon, Hatfield, was the home of Beatrix Potter's grandparents, Edmund Potter (1802-1883) and Jessy Crompton (1801-1891). Beatrix Potter described it as 'the place I love best in the world'. She visited several times between 1882 and 1888, recording her impressions in her journal and sketching both interior and exterior views. This is a drawing of her bedroom at Camfield Place, called bedroom 'no. 4'. After her grandmother's death she was given the bed, chair and mirror depicted in the drawing.

Bedroom no. 4 at Camfield Place inspired the settings of several imaginative drawings by Beatrix Potter, including ink sketches of a rabbit (assumed to be Peter Rabbit) asleep in a half-tester bed.