Untitled
Royal Copenhagen
Category
Ceramics
Date
1894 - 1900
Materials
Porcelain with coloured glazes
Measurements
77 mm (Length)
Place of origin
Copenhagen
Order this imageCollection
Hill Top, Cumbria
NT 641481
Summary
Figure group, porcelain, depicting two rabbits eating lettuce leaf, modelled by Arnold Krog for Royal Copenhagen, c.1894; model number '518', mostly in the white with some naturalistic coloured glazes applied to the eyes, ears and lettuce leaf.
Full description
This figure group is from the collection at Hill Top. Beatrix Potter purchased this farmhouse in the Lake District village of Near Sawrey in 1905, using the profits from her books. After her marriage to William Heelis in 1913, Beatrix relocated permanently to Sawrey. The couple made nearby Castle Cottage their home, but Beatrix spent as much time as she could at Hill Top. As well as a space for work and creativity – and the location for many of her famous tales – it became an intensely personal sanctuary for Beatrix. Beatrix knew exactly how she would decorate Hill Top and she arranged its interiors carefully and deliberately. She wrote: ‘I would have old furniture…it is not as expensive as modern furniture, and incomparably handsomer…’ Once she had renovated the farmhouse, she filled it with examples of local furniture and treasured heirlooms, like her grandmother’s warming pan and a set of plates decorated with designs by her father. By her own admission, Beatrix was ‘conceited about arranging china’ and liked things to be in their proper place (1). A 1912 photograph (NT242368) by Rupert Potter gives a sense of how some of the ceramics in the parlour had been arranged by Beatrix. The mantelpiece display included a Derby bone china teapot, with a matching side plate and sugar box of about 1815-25 (NT641367, 71). Even then the teapot was without its cover, which doesn’t seem to have mattered to Beatrix – from the photograph it looks as though she used it to keep things in. Alongside was a Wedgwood plate of about 1780-90 (NT641462), this figure group by Royal Copenhagen of a pair of rabbits, made in 1894-1900 (NT641481) and a rather chic printed French coffee can and saucer of about 1810-20 by Stone, Coquerel & Gros of Paris (NT641511). The arrangement had been changed by the time of the 1946 inventory, when the property was arranged for the visiting public after Beatrix’s death. A silver lustre tea set of about 1920 by the Staffordshire firm, A. G. Richardson & Co. Ltd, formed the centrepiece (NT641524), with character figure bookends also placed there – probably a pair of painted plaster prototypes of Lady Mouse and Benjamin Bunny, inscribed ‘M. M. Jones’ (NT641488-9).
Marks and inscriptions
518
Makers and roles
Royal Copenhagen, manufacturer