The publishers took the designs for £6 (equivalent to around £700 today) and requested more. During the 1880s, Potter began making Christmas cards for relatives and with the support of her uncle, at the age of 23, she sent her drawings to the publishers Hildesheimer & Faulkner. This artistic training, coupled with her close study of nature, was vital to her later success as an author and illustrator. Millais recognised Potter's talent, telling her: 'Plenty of people can draw, but you have observation.' With the encouragement of her father, Potter went on to study at the National Art Training School in London (now the Royal College of Art). Her father, a talented amateur photographer, had friendships within the London art world including the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (1829–1896), whose family would holiday with the Potters in Perthshire, Scotland. Her early sketches included detailed images of her pets and other animals. Often left to her own devices at home, especially after her brother was sent to boarding school, it was in the room on the third floor that served as her nursery, school room and later, studio, where Potter's imagination and artistic skills began to flourish.īy the age of 14, she had started a journal, written in code, to record her thoughts, ideas and sketches and kept it up until the age of 30. She found comfort in her many pets (including mice, lizards and rabbits) and drawing. Educated at home by a governess and cared for by nannies, she had few friends of her own age and lived a life of lonely privilege.

Her brother Walter Bertram was six years her junior. It was here, at number two Bolton Gardens, that Beatrix Potter was born in July 1866 and raised in an affluent Victorian household complete with maids, cooks, butlers and nursemaids.Īs the eldest child of the family, Potter's early life was solitary.

They left their family roots in the industrial Midlands to live in a large house in the exclusive area of South Kensington, London.

Her father Rupert, a qualified barrister, married her mother Helen in 1863. Beatrix Potter was born and raised in London, the eldest child of parents who had both inherited Lancashire cotton fortunes.

The tale of the flopsy bunnies 1909