# - Potter, Beatrix [or Bertram Potter].

i) 126 by 170mm., pencil and ink drawing of cows, unsigned, contemporary ink spill to upper right corner; ii) 71 by 90mm., pencil drawing of an elephant, unsigned; iii) 56 by 143mm., fine ink drawing of a seal on a rock, unsigned; all mounted, some spotting, browning and soiling, later juvenile copy of elephant between second and third illustrations

The first drawing, of cows, has some minor spotting and browning towards the top edge. There is a contemporary ink spill to the top right corner. The second leaf has a heavy fold in the centre and a later juvenile attempt at an elephant outline present. This sheet is soiled with some large spotting. The reverse has additional juvenile drawings.
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Another copy of cattle wading into a pond is reproduced within Judy Taylor's selection of Beatrix Potter letters (see ed. Taylor, Judy, Beatrix Potter's Letters (London, 1989), p.388). See also V&A154.

Beatrix Potter visited the Zoological Gardens in London on numerous occasions. The V&A collection includes a sketch of deer drawn "at Zoological Gardens June 91" (see V&A172) and there are numerous references to visits in her letters. The outline of the elephant presumably originates from one of these visits. Hobbs notes, in Beatrix Potter - Artist and Illustrator (London, 2005), that Potter "explor[ed] the Zoological Gardens for exotic animals". See V&A1110 for Bertram Potter's sketch book which included an illustration of an elephant (see Hobbs and Whalley, Beatrix Potter - The V&A Collection (London, 1985), p.131).

There are apparently no references to drawings of seals in the V&A collection.

Attribution of Bertram Potter is also a possibility for the elephant and the seal.