Rabbits falling into snow
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.
Read on
In 1890 Beatrix Potter and her brother, Bertram, hoped to buy a printing machine. Bertram suggested that Beatrix sell her imaginary drawings to raise funds. The printer Hildesheimer & Faulkner purchased six designs from Beatrix and printed them as Christmas and New Year cards. Potter made numerous other imaginary drawings in the 1890s but this unfinished design has something in common with the Hildesheimer & Faulkner designs in terms of subject matter – many of the cards featured rabbits in snow - and may have been made with a greetings card design in mind. The humour and accurate depictions of animal anatomy seen in Potter’s imaginary watercolours of the 1890s anticipate her later book illustrations.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- BP.1256
