{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1311961"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1311961/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PK5141/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2025PK5141/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2025PK5141","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK5140","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1311961","accessionNumber":"BP.516","objectType":"Watercolour","titles":[{"title":"Mice in a shoe","type":"published title"}],"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\nAs early as 1893 Beatrix Potter had illustrated a rhyme that appears in the 1917 Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes. Following her completion of the drawings for The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, she began to think seriously about a book of rhymes, and worked on the project between 1902 and 1905, while also producing more of her well-known ‘little books’. Following the death of her editor and, by then, fiancé, Norman Warne, in 1905, the project was put aside and left untouched for many years, before being taken up again in June 1917; Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes was published in an abridged edition that October. This design is a slight variant of an illustration used in the book, and dates from around 1905. It illustrates the first verse of Potter’s own rhyme:\r\n\r\nYou know the old woman \r\nwho lived in a shoe?\r\nAnd had so many children\r\nShe didn’t know what to do?\r\n\r\nI think if she lived in\r\na little shoe-house-\r\nThat little old woman was\r\nsurely a mouse!\r\n","physicalDescription":"A watercolour and pen and ink drawing within a rough pencil border, in landscape format. The illustration shows a mouse in a cap and eight of her children in and around a blue shoe with a decorative buckle and front and a low heel.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Beatrix Potter","id":"A18000"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ink","id":"AAT15012"},{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"},{"text":"paper (fiber product)","id":"AAT14109"},{"text":"watercolour (paint)","id":"AAT15045"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour painting (technique)","id":"THES250889"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"watercolour and pen and ink over pencil on paper","categories":[{"text":"Illustration","id":"THES48938"},{"text":"Anthropomorphism","id":"THES252998"},{"text":"Animals and Wildlife","id":"THES250852"},{"text":"Watercolours","id":"THES277714"},{"text":"Children & Childhood","id":"THES48980"},{"text":"Books","id":"THES48986"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"}],"styles":[{"text":"British","id":"AAT111159"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2025PK5141","2025PK5140"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES343884"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"watercolour (painting)","id":"AAT78925"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1905","earliest":"1900-01-01","latest":"1909-12-31"},"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":"210","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"177","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Drawn by Beatrix Potter in ca. 1905 in relation to Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes, which was eventually published in 1917. 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":"Watercolour and pen and ink drawing of a family of mice in a shoe, illustrating a rhyme that appears in Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes; drawn by Beatrix Potter in around 1905 for the book eventually published in 1917; Linder Bequest cat. no. LB.714.\r\n\r","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"Hobbs, Anne Stevenson, and Joyce Irene Whalley, eds. <u>Beatrix Potter: the V & A collection : the Leslie Linder bequest of Beatrix Potter material : watercolours, drawings, manuscripts, books, photographs and memorabilia.</u> London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985.","id":"AUTH315806"},"details":"p.73; no.714","free":"Hobbs, Anne Stevenson, and Joyce Irene Whalley, eds. Beatrix Potter: the V & A collection: the Leslie Linder bequest of Beatrix Potter material: watercolours, drawings, manuscripts, books, photographs and memorabilia. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985. p.73; no.714"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"illustrations","id":"AAT15578"},{"text":"mice","id":"AAT168291"},{"text":"shoes","id":"AAT46065"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["BP.516"],"accessionNumberNum":"516","accessionNumberPrefix":"BP","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"Linder Bequest catalogue no.","id":"THES57120"},"number":"LB.714"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-04-05","recordCreationDate":"2015-03-27","availableToBook":true}}