At the weekend Penny gave an excellent talk at Kendal Museum about Beatrix Potter's fascination with fungi, her early mycological works and how this would go on to help shape her imaginative works.
There were some lovely glimpses of Beatrix Potter's pleasure in the natural world, as well as slides of some of her beautiful, detailed and scientifically accurate drawings and paintings.
Penny quoted an entry in Potter's 1896 journal of the family holiday in Sawrey all the "little fungus people singing and bobbing and dancing in the grass and under the leaves". This entry occurs at a point at which she was deeply immersed in serious mycological study.
The talk was wide ranging with references to the inclusion of fungi in many of Beatrix Potter's tales and stories. I particularly love the illustration of Squirrel Nutkin playing marbles on a tree stump, whilst toadstools grow naturally out of the leaves, and the Toads' Tea-Party. The illustration for the Toads' Tea-Party was created for a book of nursery rhymes which was never completed.
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| Toads' Tea Party |
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| The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin |