{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1257507"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1257507/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PK5135/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PK5135/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2025PK5135","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK5134","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1257507","accessionNumber":"BP.471","objectType":"Watercolour","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three Original Peter Rabbit Books between 1901 and 1913.  The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.\r\n\r\nThe Tailor of Gloucester was Beatrix's favourite of her little books and the second to be privately printed prior to publication by  Frederick Warne & Co. in 1903.  Many of Beatrix Potter’s stories begin ‘Once upon a time…’.  The Tailor of Gloucester is unusual in that the story takes place at a specific period – ‘the time of swords and periwigs’ – between about 1735 and 1785.   Beatrix went to extraordinary lengths to create an authentic setting. Passing a tailor’s shop in Chelsea one day, she    deliberately tore a button off her coat and took it in to be mended so she could observe at first hand the tailor’s posture, tools and workbench.  She sought inspiration for the costumes in 18th-century clothes owned by her local museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum (then known as the South Kensington Museum). In March 1903 she wrote to her publisher, Norman Warne: ‘I had been looking at them for a long time in an inconvenient dark corner of the Goldsmith’s Court, but had no idea they could be taken out of the case.  The clerk says I could have any article put on a table in one of the offices, which will be most convenient.’  Her sketches of the Museum's costumes are so accurate that it is possible to identify the original garments, including the mayor’s waistcoat, ‘worked with poppies and corn-flowers’.\r\n\r\nThese two drawings were produced for the privately printed edition and do not appear in Frederick Warne's edition of 1903.  However, Beatrix reworked the second drawing of the mice sewing for Warne's edition but included only the image of the mouse threading a needle.","physicalDescription":"Rats dancing in the Mayor's cellar, left, and mice making coats and one threading a needle, right. Images within a square frame.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Beatrix Potter","id":"A18000"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28674"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ink","id":"AAT15012"},{"text":"paper (fiber product)","id":"AAT14109"},{"text":"watercolour (paint)","id":"AAT15045"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour painting (technique)","id":"THES250889"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Watercolour and pen and ink on paper","categories":[{"text":"Illustration","id":"THES48938"},{"text":"Drawings","id":"THES48966"},{"text":"Animals and Wildlife","id":"THES250852"},{"text":"Anthropomorphism","id":"THES252998"},{"text":"Children & Childhood","id":"THES48980"},{"text":"Dance","id":"THES252984"},{"text":"Embroidery","id":"THES48960"},{"text":"Clothing","id":"THES48975"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"},{"text":"Watercolours","id":"THES277714"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2025PK5135","2025PK5134"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"008","id":"THES318122"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"008","id":"THES318122"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES317922"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"watercolour (painting)","id":"AAT78925"}],[{"text":"watercolour (painting)","id":"AAT78925"}],[{"text":"mount","id":"AAT171585"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1902-1903","earliest":"1897-01-01","latest":"1906-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Linder Bequest [plus object number; written on labels on the same line as the object number]","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"10.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"18.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Drawn by Beatrix Potter while preparing illustrations for the privately printed edition of The Tailor of Gloucester in 1903. Acquired by the V&A from Leslie Linder (1904-1973) in 1973 as part of the Linder Bequest, a collection of ca. 2150  watercolours, drawings, literary manuscripts, correspondence, books, photographs, and other memorabilia  associated with Beatrix Potter and her family.   ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Two watercolour and pen and ink drawings by Beatrix Potter; drawn ca. 1902-1903 for the privately printed edition of The Tailor of Gloucester (1903). Linder Bequest catalogue no. LB 790.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"'Hobbs and Whalley, Beatrix Potter : the V&A Collection, London, 1985'","id":"AUTH315806"},"details":"Brief catalogue entry, p.85","free":""}],"production":"Drawn by Beatrix Potter while preparing illustrations for the privately printed edition of The Tailor of Gloucester in 1903. The first drawing was not included in Warne's edition of the book. The second was redrawn and only the mouse threading the needle was included (Leslie Linder's Catalogue).","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"mice","id":"AAT168291"},{"text":"sewing","id":"AAT53658"},{"text":"dancing","id":"x37546"},{"text":"cellar","id":"AAT4759"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["The Tailor of Gloucester"],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"In December 1901 Potter sent an illustrated story to Freda Moore, who was ‘fond of fairy-tales’: ‘I heard it in Gloucestershire, and it is true!’ The story, ‘from Miss Caroline Hutton, who had it of Miss Lucy, of Gloucester, who had it of the tailor’, was that the tailor had left a waistcoat out ready to sew but found it mysteriously finished on his return, except for one buttonhole. In Potter’s version, the fairies are mice.","date":{"text":"November 2019","earliest":"2019-11-01","latest":"2019-11-30"}}],"partNumbers":["BP.471(A)","BP.471(B)","BP.471(C)"],"accessionNumberNum":"471","accessionNumberPrefix":"BP","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Linder Bequest catalogue no.","id":"THES57120"},"number":"LB.790"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","BP.471A","BP.471B"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-09-29","recordCreationDate":"2012-11-21","availableToBook":true}}