Watercolour
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
This study of a stream among lush vegetation on a hillside may be a Lake District view. Beatrix Potter’s family holidayed in the Lake District regularly from 1885 and in 1905 she cemented her connection to the area by purchasing Hill Top. However, it was not until her marriage to Lakeland solicitor William Heelis in 1913 that she settled there permanently. Some of Potter’s well-known ‘little books’ are inspired by the Lakeland landscape. The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-winkle (Frederick Warne & Co., 1905) is set in the Newlands valley and includes an illustration of a mountain stream. Although the view shown is different to this one, it is possible the study could have been made with the tale in mind.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- BP.1129(ii)
Meanwhile, in the life of Beatrix Potter
The whole life2 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.
1905
Engagement to Norman Warne, and his death
In 1905 Beatrix and her publisher Norman Warne became unofficially engaged; her parents objected because Warne was “in trade” and so socially unsuitable. The engagement lasted only a month: Warne died of a blood disease at the age of 37.
1905
Buys Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey
In 1905, with the proceeds of her books and a small legacy from an aunt, Beatrix bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in the Lake District, six miles west of Lake Windermere. She and Warne may have hoped it would be their holiday home, but after his death she went ahead with the purchase, as she had always wanted to own that farm and live in “that charming village”.
