Sidmouth street scene copied from a story letter
Beatrix Potter (London 1866 - Near Sawrey, Cumbria 1943)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
1900
Materials
Ink, Paper, Pencil
Measurements
180 x 224 mm
Place of origin
Sidmouth
Order this imageCollection
Beatrix Potter Gallery, Cumbria
NT 242736
Summary
Ink drawing copied from a story letter sent by Beatrix Potter to Noel Moore from Cottymeade, Sidmouth, 17 April 1898. There is no text, only a single pencil and ink illustration. Houses and a church with trees in the churchyard line the right hand side of a Sidmouth street. In the street a dog wearing a coat and carrying a stick and a basket walks into the foreground, having been passed by a woman carrying a basket who walks away from the viewer. The dog is Stumpy, who features in The Tale of Little Pig Robinson; the woman is a self-portrait of Beatrix Potter. This is a copy from the same story letter as HIL.R.54 and HIL.R.173. The original letter is in the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; and has the following text written at the bottom left of the page - 'but so proud! I met him out shopping in the morning, he looks at me sideways but he never speaks!' See also HIL.R.54 and HIL.R.173, copies from the same story letter; HIL.RD.80 and HIL.RD.81, sketchbooks containing drawings of the same street in Sidmouth; HIL.RD.94, a drawing probably of a street in Sidmouth (a different street). The original letter is published in 'Letters to Children' edited by Judy Taylor.
Makers and roles
Beatrix Potter (London 1866 - Near Sawrey, Cumbria 1943), artist