Rabbit opening a door to find a basket of food, including carrots
Watercolour
ca.1894 (made)
ca.1894 (made)
Artist/Maker |
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.
Before publishing her own stories, Beatrix Potter made numerous imaginary drawings, as well as illustrations for fairy tales, fables and classic texts, such as Uncle Remus, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. She drew largely to amuse herself, or children she knew, but also to develop her illustrative technique. Some of her imaginary scenes were also published as greetings cards by the firm Hildesheimer and Faulkner from 1890.
Ernest Nister, a German firm who published children’s books for the English market from their London offices, also published some of Potter’s designs during the 1890s. This drawing is a preparatory sketch for a design now in the National Trust collection that Nister featured on the front cover of one of their books, Changing Pictures: a Book of Transformation Pictures, in 1894. The book also contains six full-page chromolithograph illustrations with paper tabs allowing readers to operate slats and ‘transform’ the movable pictures. In the finished version of Potter’s illustration, the basket contains turnips as well as carrots.
An illustration in Potter’s later Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (begun in 1905; published by Frederick Warne in 1917) returns to the subject of a rabbit finding a basket of carrots outside of the door. It is accompanied by the lines: ‘And when she peeps out there is nobody there, But a present of carrots put down on the stair.’
Before publishing her own stories, Beatrix Potter made numerous imaginary drawings, as well as illustrations for fairy tales, fables and classic texts, such as Uncle Remus, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. She drew largely to amuse herself, or children she knew, but also to develop her illustrative technique. Some of her imaginary scenes were also published as greetings cards by the firm Hildesheimer and Faulkner from 1890.
Ernest Nister, a German firm who published children’s books for the English market from their London offices, also published some of Potter’s designs during the 1890s. This drawing is a preparatory sketch for a design now in the National Trust collection that Nister featured on the front cover of one of their books, Changing Pictures: a Book of Transformation Pictures, in 1894. The book also contains six full-page chromolithograph illustrations with paper tabs allowing readers to operate slats and ‘transform’ the movable pictures. In the finished version of Potter’s illustration, the basket contains turnips as well as carrots.
An illustration in Potter’s later Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (begun in 1905; published by Frederick Warne in 1917) returns to the subject of a rabbit finding a basket of carrots outside of the door. It is accompanied by the lines: ‘And when she peeps out there is nobody there, But a present of carrots put down on the stair.’
Object details
Categories | |
Object type | |
Title | Rabbit opening a door to find a basket of food, including carrots |
Materials and techniques | pencil and watercolour on paper |
Brief description | Pencil and watercolour sketch of a rabbit opening a door to find a basket of food, including carrots, on the doorstep; drawn by Beatrix Potter, probably in 1894; Linder Bequest cat. no. LB.999. |
Physical description | A design for a vignette format illustration, with a rabbit opening a door to find a basket of food, including carrots, on the doorstep. |
Dimensions |
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Production type | Unique |
Marks and inscriptions | 'printed?' [or] 'painted?' (Inscribed in pencil, lower left.) |
Credit line | Linder Bequest [plus object number; written on labels on the same line as the object number] |
Object history | Drawn by Beatrix Potter, probably in 1894. 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 | |
Summary | 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. Before publishing her own stories, Beatrix Potter made numerous imaginary drawings, as well as illustrations for fairy tales, fables and classic texts, such as Uncle Remus, Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. She drew largely to amuse herself, or children she knew, but also to develop her illustrative technique. Some of her imaginary scenes were also published as greetings cards by the firm Hildesheimer and Faulkner from 1890. Ernest Nister, a German firm who published children’s books for the English market from their London offices, also published some of Potter’s designs during the 1890s. This drawing is a preparatory sketch for a design now in the National Trust collection that Nister featured on the front cover of one of their books, Changing Pictures: a Book of Transformation Pictures, in 1894. The book also contains six full-page chromolithograph illustrations with paper tabs allowing readers to operate slats and ‘transform’ the movable pictures. In the finished version of Potter’s illustration, the basket contains turnips as well as carrots. An illustration in Potter’s later Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes (begun in 1905; published by Frederick Warne in 1917) returns to the subject of a rabbit finding a basket of carrots outside of the door. It is accompanied by the lines: ‘And when she peeps out there is nobody there, But a present of carrots put down on the stair.’ |
Bibliographic references |
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Other number | LB.999 - Linder Bequest catalogue no. |
Collection | |
Library number | BP.1259 |
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Record created | November 17, 2016 |
Record URL |
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