Princess of Wales displays relative Beatrix Potter's art in V&A exhibit

Telegraph

30-07-2025

The Princess of Wales has showcased her distant relative Beatrix Potter's artwork in her own 'mini display' at a new V&A facility.
The Princess – related to the Peter Rabbit creator through her great-great-great uncle – chose one of the author's watercolour paintings, depicting a forest glade, for a personally curated display at V&A East Storehouse.
She also selected a childhood photograph album belonging to the author's father, Rupert Potter, alongside several other objects for the display, entitled Makers and Creators, at the east London museum.
It is not the first time the Princess has shown a fondness for the works of the children's writer. Prince George's first birthday had a Beatrix Potter theme, and his nursery room was reportedly decorated with characters from her books.
In 2014, The Telegraph reported that the Princess's great-great-great uncle was Dr Arthur Lupton, a Leeds University pro-chancellor whose brother-in-law, Lord Ashton, the First Baron Ashton of Hyde, was a first cousin of Potter.
Potter, who died in 1943 at the age of 77, wrote 35 books, including The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which was an instant success after being picked up in 1902 by British children's publisher Frederick Warne & Co.
For the new display, to be unveiled on Wednesday, the Princess worked with the V&A's curatorial team to select objects from across the museum's vast collections.
It brings together objects chosen by the Princess to celebrate past makers and creators and is intended to show how historic objects can influence fashion, design, film, art and creativity in the modern day.
Her display also includes a costume worn by Diana Vere in The Royal Ballet's 1960 production of The Sleeping Beauty, which was designed by Oliver Messel, one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century.
It also features a sculpture of hands by Clemence Dane from the mid-20th century and an oil painting entitled A Woman Holding a Mirror and a Rose by George Henry Boughton, an Anglo-American artist.
The display is rounded out by a hand-quilted bedcover made in Wales between 1830 and 1840, a Morris & Co furnishing screen from the mid-1880s, a Qing dynasty porcelain vase from Jingdezhen, China, and a 15th-century earthenware tile.
The Princess's selection is one of over 100 displays that have been exhibited in the sides and ends of storage racking inside the museum, and will be on view until early next year.
The V&A East Storehouse, described as 'the nation's Victorian attic' by one art critic, includes 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 special archives, with displays designed to reduce barriers and cabinets. It puts items that would otherwise be in storage on public display.
The Princess, who is the V&A Royal Patron, visited V&A East Storehouse last month and was given a behind-the-scenes tour by the V&A's curatorial team, finding out more about why objects are collected, and how they are cared for, conserved and displayed.