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.

Beatrix Potter delighted in sketching the interiors and furniture of the many houses she visited. This and a closely related study (museum no. BP.1129(iv)) were made as preparatory studies for her book The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-winkle (Frederick Warne, 1905), and are likely inspired by a real Lake District interior. In the book this setting becomes Mrs Tiggy-winkle’s kitchen; Mrs Tiggy-winkle’s home is in the Newlands Valley, not far from Keswick.

After purchasing her first Lake District property, Hill Top, in 1905, Potter took a keen interest in furnishing the house with family furniture from London and oak furniture purchased at local sales. The interior of Hill Top inspired some of her book illustrations, particularly those for The Tale of Samuel Whiskers (Frederick Warne, 1908). Potter’s interest in furniture continued long after her retirement from writing and illustrating children’s books, when she dedicated much time to buying and restoring Lakeland farmhouses and furniture, leaving fourteen farms and twenty houses to the National Trust upon her death in 1943.