Crow with cheese in its beak

1919 · Watercolour · 15.1 × 20.2 cm

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Crow with cheese in its beak” now? Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.

Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 15 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

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.

In the 1890s, before becoming a published author, Beatrix Potter wrote out versions of, and made illustrations for, Aesop’s fables. Potter’s illustrations of well-known tales by other authors reveal her ability to bring their tales into her own imaginative world, her illustrations characterised by animal characters rendered with their natural behaviours and anatomy in mind.

Read on

She came back to her early interest in Aesop in 1918 with the publication of The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse (Frederick Warne), based on the fable of ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’. Potter then continued developing ideas based on Aesop’s fables in relation to her next book, which she planned as an amalgam of fables featuring Miss Jenny Crow and a fox. She sent a draft to her publishers, Frederick Warne & Co., writing, ‘I very much hope this may find favour? As I have (perhaps rashly!) started some of the pictures. Also crow shooting starts on Saturday so I have hopes of both models & pies.’ Her publishers, however, were unconvinced, replying: ‘it is not Miss Potter, it is Aesop.’

This study of a crow with a piece of food in its mouth is probably a study for ‘The Fox and the Crow’ and could well have been made at this time, in 1919. Bu, as noted above, Potter’s engagement with Aesop’s fables started considerably earlier. See also museum numbers Linder Bequest BP.1140(b) and BP.1140(c).

Victoria and Albert Museum