{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O136672"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O136672/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019MD3161/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2019MD3161/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2019MD3161","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019MD3162","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2009CR5903","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London / courtesy of Frederick Warne & Co. ","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O136672","accessionNumber":"AR.4:386-2006","objectType":"Watercolour","titles":[{"title":"Margaret Gainsborough, copied from Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters, Mary and Margaret (ca.1758) in the Victoria and Albert Museum","type":"generic 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\nLargely self-taught, Beatrix frequently studied and sketched the collections of her local museums in Kensington. Her association with the V&A, formerly known as the South Kensington Museum, is immortalised in The Tailor of Gloucester (1903); her illustrations of the Mayor's wedding outfit, including the silk waistcoat, are exact copies of eighteenth-century costumes in the V&A. Beatrix also copied works of art by Randolph Caldecott, John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and William Hogarth in the V&A's ‘Art Reading Room'.  \r\n \r\nIn this drawing Beatrix has copied the image of Margaret Gainsborough as she appears in Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters (c.1758), bequeathed to the V&A by John Forster in 1876. Beatrix also made a separate copy of Mary Gainsborough who appears on the left of Margaret in the original painting touching Margaret's head. Beatrix includes a faint outline in pencil of Mary's arm in her drawing of Margaret.  \r\n\r\nBeatrix took a particular interest in Thomas Gainsborough's paintings.  She frequently attended exhibitions at the Royal Academy and recorded her impressions of his work in her journal: ‘I think that Gainsborough deserves his fame but, as far as I have seen ... it rests on a very narrow basis.  The Blue Boy is enough to immortalise any artist, but the common notion that a portrait or landscape being by Gainsborough must be valuable and excellent, is completely erroneous.  All great artists have painted rubbish at times, and Gainsborough, considering the height to which he could rise, has painted more than most’ (Journal, 20 February 1885).","physicalDescription":"Watercolour and pencil drawing of a young girl with a faint outline of another's girl's hand on her head, a copy of the (spectator's) right figure in Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters (c.1758) in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Gainsborough's daughters would have been about ten and six years old.  It appears that the girl on the spectator's right in Gainsborough's original painting, which Beatrix Potter has copied here, is the younger and she is therefore taken to be Margaret (born ca. 1752). The hand on her head is that of Mary who is on the left of Gainsborough's original painting.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Potter, Beatrix","id":"A18000"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"},{"text":"watercolour (paint)","id":"AAT15045"},{"text":"paper (fiber product)","id":"AAT14109"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour painting (technique)","id":"THES250889"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Watercolour and pencil on paper","categories":[{"text":"Watercolours","id":"THES277714"},{"text":"Portraits","id":"THES48906"},{"text":"Copies and Facsimiles","id":"THES253072"},{"text":"Children & Childhood","id":"THES48980"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2019MD3161","2019MD3162","2009CR5903"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"009","id":"THES318013"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"watercolour (painting)","id":"AAT78925"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Victoria and Albert Museum","id":"x32782"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca.1895","earliest":"1890-01-01","latest":"1899-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"F.9","id":"O17303"},"association":"Original"}],"creditLine":"Given by Joan Duke","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"228","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"190","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Inscribed by Beatrix Potter in pencil on recto: Copied S K Museum","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"South Kensington Museum is the former name of the Victoria and Albert Museum."}],"objectHistory":"Copied from Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters at the South Kensington Museum [i.e. Victoria and Albert Museum] by Beatrix Potter, ca.1895. Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum from Joan Duke in October 2006.","historicalContext":"Thomas Gainsborough's original oil painting of his two daughters was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by John Forster in 1876. The artist painted his daughters several times. Both daughters attended Blacklands School in Chelsea, London, where they learned to draw; Margaret also became an accomplished amateur musician.  Mary married the oboe player Johann Christian Fischer in 1780, but they soon separated, and she developed eccentricities which eventually resulted in insanity.  After their father's death in 1788, the two sisters lived together.","briefDescription":"Drawing by Beatrix Potter, ca.1895;  copy of the figure of Margaret Gainsborough from Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters, Mary and Margaret, in the Victoria and Albert Museum (museum no. F.9).","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"Thomas Gainsborough's original oil painting of his two daughters was probably executed in 1758.","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Gainsborough, Margaret","id":"N960"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"girls","id":"AAT247581"},{"text":"portraits","id":"AAT15637"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["AR.4:386-2006"],"accessionNumberNum":"4","accessionNumberPrefix":"AR","accessionYear":2006,"otherNumbers":[{"type":{"text":"V&A Archive number","id":"THES54576"},"number":"AAD/2006/4/386"}],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-05-01","recordCreationDate":"2007-06-28","availableToBook":true}}