Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Folded booklet of 5 pages. Original ink holograph and watercolour manuscript with 9 ink and watercolour drawings and text by Potter, the first with title and “H. Gerbault. Copy” written below, the remainder with accompanying verse, unbound. Housed in a custom brown folding case. In superb condition.
The illustrated French poem is identified as the work of Beatrix Potter by the accompanying note written by an executor of the artist, stating that “the enclosed poem is an example of fine copying done on notepaper by Beatrix Potter (from her portfolios at Sawrey, Oct. 49).” Henri Gerbault (1863–1930) was a French illustrator and watercolourist, and this manuscript is based on a contribution by Gerbault to a children’s periodical of the early 1890s, later anthologised in Chansons du vieux temps with music by J. Tiersot (1904), also with designs by Gerbault. It is thought that these and other similar copies were made by Potter to improve her figure drawing, always her weakest point, as she later acknowledged: “I am not good – or trained – in drawing human figures (they are a terrible bother to me when I have perforce to bring them into the pictures for my own little stories)”.
UPDATE BOOK SOLD
