Tile
H. B. Potter
Category
Ceramics
Date
1881
Materials
Ceramic, with wood mount, metal corner pieces and feet
Measurements
166 x 166 x 27 mm
Order this imageCollection
Hill Top, Cumbria
NT 641377.1
Summary
Two square earthenware tiles fitted into wooden and silver-plate trivet stands, transfer printed in blue under the glaze with groups of rabbits; handwritten on reverse of the tile, 'February 1881. H B Potter'.
Full description
Until she bought Hill Top in 1905, aged 39, Beatrix had lived a stone’s throw from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Natural History Museum at her family home, 2 Bolton Gardens, in South Kensington. Beatrix’s creative energy was encouraged by her father, Rupert Potter (1832-1914). Rupert trained as a barrister but didn’t practice the law, instead spending time networking with artists, writers and politicians. He was also a talented photographer and loved to sketch. Beatrix’s brother, Bertram (1872-1918), was a professional engraver and landscape painter before becoming, like Beatrix, a farmer. Beatrix undertook formal private art lessons from a young age and the family used Vere Foster's Drawing Copy-Books at home. There were many iterations of this publication, which focussed on an enormous variety of subjects including birds and animals, landscapes, flowers, household objects and the human figure. The books included blank papers for copying the printed illustrations and were aimed at helping to improve basic drawing skills. The collection of the V&A includes a number of ink drawings of birds and animals signed by both Rupert and Beatrix, copied directly from the Vere Foster books. Not satisfied with merely copying the images, the Potters experimented with turning their blue ink drawings into prints on linen, probably by lifting off an imprint from the wet ink drawing using a gelatine bat and placing it onto the textile (e.g., V&A AR.4:374-2006). Some of these drawings were adapted into ceramic transfer prints seen, for example, on a pair of tiles converted into pot stands at Hill Top, signed by Beatrix and dated to February 1881 (NT641377.1-2) There are a number of repeats of the group of rabbits with upright ears in the collection at the V&A that are the correct scale for the tile – it was an image that Beatrix clearly really liked (e.g., V&A P.560B, drawn in 1880). The pot stands are printed, not hand painted and the prints sit under the glaze, so the Potters presumably knew someone who could glaze and fire them, or sent them to a factory to be finished. The amateur decoration of ceramics was an incredibly popular polite pastime during the late nineteenth century, so the Potters will have had access to commercially available mineral pigments or pre-mixed paints needed for making the pot stands It is also possible that Betram’s future skills as an engraver were being used in their creation. An advert for the Vere Foster drawing books, taken from an 1888 exhibition catalogue, uses one of the rabbit groups as its lead image. It was created by the artist Harrison Weir, who created many of the images used in the drawing books.
Marks and inscriptions
February 1881. H.B. Potter (signed on reverse)
Makers and roles
H. B. Potter, potter