Beatrix Potter1866–1943Drawing
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Victoria and Albert Museum
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- 7 days ago
- In this state since
- Sep 25, 2026
- Source
- The museum's own collection data
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 the tales into her own imaginative world, her illustrations characterised by animal characters rendered with their natural behaviours and anatomy in mind.
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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, as well as grapes, frogs and a stork. 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.’
The lapwing illustration on the front of this sheet of card relates to the fable of ‘The Fox and the Stork’ and probably dates from 1919 and the story based on an amalgam of fables, but as noted above Potter’s engagement with Aesop’s fables started considerably earlier. There are some rough studies of crows on the back of the sheet; these probably relate to the fable ‘The Fox and the Crow’.
Victoria and Albert Museum
Particulars
- Accession number
- BP.652(3)
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum: the museum's own open data · fetched 7 days ago
- Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
