A Victorian Naturalist: Beatrix Potter's Drawings from the Armitt Collection

Shortly after her marriage in 1913 Beatrix Potter became a member of the Armitt Library in Ambleside, Cumbria. This subscription library had been founded a year earlier by three sisters to create a collection of books of scientific, literary and antiquarian value that was intended eventually to become a small museum. Beatrix Potter strongly approved of the aims and ideals of the Armitt sisters, particularly their concern for the study of natural history and their active interest in safeguarding the Lake District countryside. She became a benefactor. Donating many valuable books and, most importantly, a large number of her own watercolour drawings. These pictures date from the years before she became a children's book author, while she was at the height of her artistic powers and concentrating on scientific illustration. They include studies of fossils, archaeological finds, mosses, lichens and many microscopic drawings. This book contains a number of her illustrations.… (more)