Drawing
1900-1 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Beatrix Potter 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.
At first publishers rejected Beatrix Potter’s manuscript of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor’s Garden’ so she decided to publish the story herself in an edition of 250 copies with black and white illustrations and a colour frontispiece. By the time her privately printed edition was published in December 1901 Frederick Warne had agreed to publish the story the following year as ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, the version with colour illustrations that many of us know today.
These sketches were made while Potter was developing illustrations for the privately printed edition of the book: the sheet is covered in sketches of rabbits made from various angles, while the more developed sketch on the left shows Mrs Rabbit with her basket. The sheet gives a sense of how Potter’s rabbit characters developed from sketches made of her pets from life.
At first publishers rejected Beatrix Potter’s manuscript of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor’s Garden’ so she decided to publish the story herself in an edition of 250 copies with black and white illustrations and a colour frontispiece. By the time her privately printed edition was published in December 1901 Frederick Warne had agreed to publish the story the following year as ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, the version with colour illustrations that many of us know today.
These sketches were made while Potter was developing illustrations for the privately printed edition of the book: the sheet is covered in sketches of rabbits made from various angles, while the more developed sketch on the left shows Mrs Rabbit with her basket. The sheet gives a sense of how Potter’s rabbit characters developed from sketches made of her pets from life.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Pen and ink and pencil on paper |
| Brief description | Rough preparatory pencil and pen and ink sketch for the title pafe of the first private edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. Great Britain, 1900-1. Linder Bequest cat. no. LB 888. |
| Physical description | A sheet of sketches of rabbits. On the left is a pencil sketch also worked up in pen and ink of Mrs Rabbit carrying a basket; in the centre are two pencil sketches of rabbit heads; in the lower left is pencil sketch of a rabbit lying down, with other rough sketches around those described. |
| Dimensions |
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| Production type | Unique |
| Credit line | Linder Bequest [plus object number; written on labels on the same line as the object number] |
| Object history | Drawn by Beatrix Potter, about 1900-1901. Acquired by the V&A from Leslie Linder (1904-1973) in 1973 as part of the Linder Bequest, a collection of ca. 2150 watercolours, drawings, literary manuscripts, correspondence, books, photographs, and other memorabilia associated with Beatrix Potter and her family. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Literary reference | <i>The Tale of Peter Rabbit</i>, Beatrix Potter |
| Summary | Beatrix Potter 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. At first publishers rejected Beatrix Potter’s manuscript of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor’s Garden’ so she decided to publish the story herself in an edition of 250 copies with black and white illustrations and a colour frontispiece. By the time her privately printed edition was published in December 1901 Frederick Warne had agreed to publish the story the following year as ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, the version with colour illustrations that many of us know today. These sketches were made while Potter was developing illustrations for the privately printed edition of the book: the sheet is covered in sketches of rabbits made from various angles, while the more developed sketch on the left shows Mrs Rabbit with her basket. The sheet gives a sense of how Potter’s rabbit characters developed from sketches made of her pets from life. |
| Bibliographic reference | Hobbs, Anne Stevenson, and Joyce Irene Whalley, eds. Beatrix Potter: the V & A collection : the Leslie Linder bequest of Beatrix Potter material : watercolours, drawings, manuscripts, books, photographs and memorabilia. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985.
p.96; no.888
Hobbs, Anne Stevenson, and Joyce Irene Whalley, eds. Beatrix Potter: the V & A collection: the Leslie Linder bequest of Beatrix Potter material: watercolours, drawings, manuscripts, books, photographs and memorabilia. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985. p.96; no.888 |
| Other number | LB.888 - Linder Bequest catalogue no. |
| Collection | |
| Library number | BP.583(4) |
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| Record created | October 29, 2015 |
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