Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

A study of a house mouse

Details
Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)
A study of a house mouse
dated 'Oct 29 87' (on the reverse)
pencil and watercolour heightened with white, unframed
3¼ x 4 in. (8 x 10 cm.)
Special notice
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis This lot is subject to Collection and Storage charges
Sale room notice
Please note that the specialist Anne Wright is also known as Anne Stevenson Hobbs.

Lot Essay

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) drew from an early age, both from nature and from her imagination, often combining the two. From the early 1880's, she made a number of careful studies of bats, lizards and fish, then of insects and spiders, fossils and fungi. Some were wild specimens, but many were pets. Her best-known drawings are of rabbits and mice. 'Benjamin Bouncer' was the inspiration for her first greetings card designs (1890) and the source of her first independent income; a later rabbit, 'Peter Piper', appears in scenes from Alice and Uncle Remus, and then in the Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), the first of her famous 'Little Books'.

Beatrix Potter grew 'a little tired of rabbits', and came to prefer mice, doormice and voles, as single 'specimens', as sheets of studies in various positions, or, like the rabbits, as protagonists in fairy tale or nursey rhyme illustrations and in her animal fantasies, where they remain faithfully naturalistic.

This drawing may well have been done during a visit to Camfield Place, near Hatfield in Hertfordshire, the house of her paternal grandparents; it is inscribed (on the verso): Oct 29 87. The paper is slightly thicker and more tinted than that used for most of her other natural history studies, except for the larger, more showy finished works done of mechanical wood pulp board. The treatment of eyes, ears and claws are all characteristic; typically, she has used white highlights to render the texture of fur.

We are grateful to Anne Wright for her help in preparing this catalogue entry and we are also grateful to Daphne Mills the curator of the Mammal Group department of Zoology at the Natural History museum, London for her assistance in identifying this mouse.

More from BRITISH ART ON PAPER INCLUDING ORIGINAL BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

View All
View All