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Showing ‘what a woman has done’1: the Beatrix Potter collections at the V&A

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Emma Laws
Emma Laws*
Affiliation:
Word & Image Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, Blythe House, 23 Blythe Road, London W14 0QX, UK
*
Email: e.laws@vam.ac.uk
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Extract

A woman artist of wide-ranging interests, Beatrix Potter is less well-known for her activities in sheep farming, natural science and the preservation of the Lakeland countryside than for her much-loved children’s books, especially The tale of Peter Rabbit. But Potter scholars and enthusiasts can gain a broad view of her oeuvre at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, home to the internationally-acclaimed original collection of Leslie Linder, the first curator and collector of her work. The world-wide popularity of the material gives rise to some challenging conservation issues that the V&A, in close association with Frederick Warne, is working to resolve.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , 2007 , pp. 25 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2007

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Footnotes

1

Beatrix Potter described a visit to the 1883 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in her journal on Saturday 13 January 1883: ‘It has raised my idea of art, and I have learnt some things by it’. In particular, she was struck by a painting entitled Design by Angelica Kauffman: ‘That picture . . . is something, it shows what a woman has done’.

References

1. Beatrix Potter described a visit to the 1883 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy in her journal on Saturday 13 January 1883: ‘It has raised my idea of art, and I have learnt some things by it’. In particular, she was struck by a painting entitled Design by Angelica Kauffman: ‘That picture . . . is something, it shows what a woman has done’.Google Scholar
2. Lane, Margaret’s account of her encounter with Potter, Beatrix was first published in Punch on 14 November 1962. It is reprinted in ‘So I shall tell you a story . . . ‘: encounters with Beatrix Potter, selected and introduced by Taylor, Judy (London: Frederick Warne, 1993), 60–67.Google Scholar
3. Letter to Marian Frazer Harris Perry, 1 March 1936. The letter is reproduced in Potters, Beatrix Americans: selected letters, edited by Morse, Jane Crowell (Boston: The Horn Book, Inc., 1982), 71.Google Scholar
4. Letter to Bertha Mahony Miller, 25 November 1940. The letter is reproduced in Beatrix Potters letters, a selection by Taylor, Judy (London: Frederick Warne, 1989), 422.Google Scholar
5. V&A Olympia is home to the Archive of Art and Design, the Beatrix Potter Collections and the V&A Archive. Appointments to view this material can be made on .Google Scholar
6. Bonython, Elizabeth and Burton, Anthony, The great exhibitor: the life and work of Henry Cole (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 87.Google Scholar
7. Ibid., 87.Google Scholar
8. Letter to Norman Warne, 27 March 1903. The letter is reproduced in Beatrix Potters letters, ibid., 73.Google Scholar
9. The letter is reproduced in Beatrix Potters letters, ibid., 465.Google Scholar
10. http://www.vam.ac.uk/.Google Scholar
11. http://catalogue.nal.vam.ac.uk/.Google Scholar
12. http://images.vam.ac.uk/.Google Scholar