Drawing Sketch of the garden at Gwaynynog, Probably March 1909, Watercolour and pencil on paper
(Picture: ©Victoria and Albert Museum, Lo)Beatrix Potter is forever associated with the Lake District, but that’s all hokum. She was in fact a Londoner, born in Kensington and raised in Bolton Gardens. She started going to the Lake District as a teenager but only moved up there for good at 47.
But you don’t have to live in the country (certainly not in that era of big gardens) to have a feeling for nature and animals. What this fascinating exhibition demonstrates is how an interested and clever little girl from a prosperous middle class background could get an artistic training and develop an expertise in the natural world (especially fungi) and an intimate acquaintance with animals as a complete amateur.
