Beatrix Potter's Watercolours
Beatrix
Potter was a talented watercolourist, particularly of
the natural world, from an early age and her paintings
and drawings are now in collections, both private and
public, all over the world.
Shown
here is a small collection of her watercolours |
Watercolour
of Hill Top from Beatrix
Potter’s sketchbook |
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Ringtailed fieldmouse
Camfield 1886 |
The
Toads' Tea Party: ca. 1905
Copyright © Frederick Warne & Co.,
1955 |
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Gwaenynog,
Denbighshire
Beatrix Potter painted
this view in May 1912.
It is reproduced here
by kind permission of the Rare Book Department, Free Library
of Philadelphia. |
William Heelis
introduced Beatrix Potter to the Armitt Library, of which
he was an early Trustee. Beatrix considered the Armitt, which from
the beginning concentrated on local history, art and literature,
to be of potential benefit to the area. She felt it was a suitable
place to hold her watercolours of fungi and mosses, the microscope
studies and the watercolours of Roman artifacts and bequeathed
them
to the Library before she died. She also gave the Library a selection
of her fathers’ and her own books, including some rare volumes.
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Leccinum
versipelle, the Orange
Birch Bolete
An important distinguishing
feature of some boletes is their change of colour when broken
or bruised. The name means changing skin, the cap changing
from light to dark orange while the flesh and stem can even
change to blue when cut, as is clearly shown in the painting
of Leccinum versipelle, the Orange Birch Bolete.
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Pipistrelle
and long eared bats
Beatrix notes that
these are long-eared bats disputing with a common bat for
the possession of the roosting place.
Drawn from tame animals
in 1886. Beatrix drew bats and insects as well as fungi
at Camfield Place.
Purchased December 1991 with a donation from the Beatrix
Potter Society.
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