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.

An artist himself, Rupert Potter (1832-1914) was probably the single greatest influence on his daughter's enduring passion for the arts and natural history and on her development as a writer and illustrator. Rupert took up photography in the 1860s when it was still a relatively new art form and was elected to the Photographic Society of London in 1869. An enthusiastic and skilled amateur, he later contributed to photographic exhibitions. Rupert's favourite subject was Beatrix herself. Photography was an expensive and laborious process yet she appears to have endured patiently the elaborate choreography and the camera’s uncomfortably long exposure. Rupert's prolific legacy of several hundred photographs forms a broad pictorial account of Beatrix’s life from infancy to marriage.

During the summer months the Potter family enjoyed extended summer holidays in Scotland and the Lake District. This photograph of Rupert, Beatrix and her brother, Bertram Potter (1872-1918), with their dog, Spot, was taken in 1889 while the family were renting Holehird House, an estate with entensive gardens near Windermere. The estate is now home to the Lakeland Horticultural Society.