Beatrix Potter1866–1943A dead fawn
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Not receiving at present
Victoria and Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
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 early childhood Beatrix Potter spent time drawing the many pets that she kept in her schoolroom: over the years, her pets included lizards, snails, bats, mice, rabbits and many other animals. During the family’s long summer holidays to rural areas she also took the opportunity to draw the plants and animals she saw in the countryside. Even her earliest childhood drawings show a serious interest in natural history, her sketches annotated with information about the species concerned.
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As a young woman Beatrix Potter studied natural history with some seriousness, exploring the collections of the Natural History Museum, including the insect cases and fungi specimens. She had a collector’s cabinet full of specimens, from shells to dead butterflies and moths, and used a magnifying glass and a microscope to examine them more closely. She made numerous carefully observed studies of animals and plants from life.
Another study of a dead deer in the Linder Bequest is dated 24 July 1880 – when Potter was about to turn 14 (museum number BP.889). Her unsentimental approach to drawing animals from life continued into adulthood.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- BP.381
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
