Beatrix Potter1866–1943Setting for 'The Veal and Ham Pie'
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Not on view at present
Where is “Setting for 'The Veal and Ham Pie'” now? Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.
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
The front of the Sawrey Post Office forms a memorable backdrop in The Tale of The Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905). This preliminary watercolour showcases the beautiful tiger lilies surrounding the door frame. The figures have not yet been completed, revealing how key the surroundings were for the end look of each of Beatrix’s illustrations. In fact those in place are not those that feature in the final scene. The completed illustration in the 'little book' is entitled The Veal and Ham Pie and is closer up and face-on.
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.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Details
- Accession number
- BP.502
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
In the life of Beatrix Potter
The whole life1900–1901
A dummy book of the rabbit tale, printed at her own expense
In 1900 Beatrix revised her tale of the four little rabbits and made a dummy book of it — it has been suggested, in imitation of Helen Bannerman’s 1899 bestseller; no one would buy it. So in December 1901 she had it printed at her own expense for family and friends — in black and white, with a coloured frontispiece.
2 October 1902
“The Tale of Peter Rabbit” is published
Several publishers had turned the manuscript down, Frederick Warne & Co among them, but the firm, eager to enter the booming market for small-format children’s books, reconsidered on the advice of the artist L. Leslie Brooke; it declined Rawnsley’s verse version in favour of Beatrix’s own prose, and she agreed to colour her illustrations, choosing the new Hentschel three-colour process. “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” appeared on 2 October 1902 and was an immediate success.
1903
A patented Peter Rabbit toy: the birth of character merchandising
In 1903 Beatrix made and patented a Peter Rabbit doll — he became the first fictional character made into a patented soft toy, and so the oldest licensed character. Painting books, board games, wallpaper, figurines, baby blankets and china tea-sets followed under licence from her publisher Warne, earning her an independent income, and Harrods catalogues list Peter merchandise from at least 1910.
1903–1922
Two or three books a year with the editor Norman Warne
“The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin” and “The Tailor of Gloucester” followed “Peter Rabbit” in 1903 — both also began as picture letters to the Moore children. Working with the editor Norman Warne, Beatrix published two or three little books a year — 23 in all in that format, the last, in 1922, being “Cecily Parsley’s Nursery Rhymes”; the royalties gave her a degree of independence, though she still lived with her parents.
