Potter, Beatrix | An original fantasy drawing by Beatrix Potter, given as a Christmas present

Property from the Collection of Robin Bradley Martin

Potter, Beatrix

"Mother Guniea Pig and Her Young," 1895

Original watercolor and ink drawing on paper (80 x 96 mm, sight), signed and dated lower right: "H.B.P. | Xmas 95." Matted, framed, and glazed.

"The Guennol Collection also includes a fantasy drawing by Miss Potter: ink and watercolor combined to portray a guinea pig with a blue pushcart, wherein sits a baby of that species facing its guardian. … It was a gift to the daughter of Miss Potter's first cousin Edith and may have originally been an early design for a greeting card series she prepared for Hildesheimer & Faulkner about this time. One can witness the affection and warmth between the two mammals, one of maternal protection and the other of absolute trust. It could have been a typical scene observed in the village of Sawrey, transformed into the animal world Miss Potter knew best, with a sprinkling of some fairy dust" (Justin G. Schiller in The Guennol Collection, III:221). 

REFERENCE:

The Guennol Collection, vol. III, catalogue to the Brooklyn Museum exhibition, 1991, pp. 218–22, illus.

PROVENANCE:

Alastair B. and Edith Park Martin (The Guennol Collection), by bequest to — Robin Bradley Martin