A COLLECTION of photographs by Beatrix Potter’s father, Rupert Potter, is up for auction next month at 1818 Auctioneers.
One of the 41 black and white photographs, taken in the late summers of 1909, 1911 and 1913, is believed to be of Beatrix Potter sat in the porch of Broad Leys, a house they rented by Windermere in 1909. At the time Beatrix Potter was working on ‘The Tale of Ginger and Pickles’.
Rupert Potter was a keen and competent amateur photographer and a member of the Photographic Society of London. The National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museums in London have exhibited and hold some of his photographs.
Although Potter’s interest was portrait photography, the collection of which is up for sale on Monday April 3 is not of people but of the house and gardens at Broad Leys (1909) and Lindeth How (1911 and 1913). There are also views of Bowness and Windermere including the Old England Hotel dated 1911. The exception is the one image of, very likely, his daughter Beatrix.
David Brookes from 1818 Auctioneers has put an estimate of £800 to £1,200 on the collection which is being sold by an anonymous vendor whose family once worked for Beatrix Potter’s mother in Windermere.
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