POTTER, Beatrix.

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Original artwork for the nursery rhyme: "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe". An early version of a nursery rhyme later adapted for Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes. The drawings comprise a rare sequence of illustrations, together with the text all in the artist's hand, for this classic nursery rhyme.After The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), Potter suggested her second book for Frederick Warne & Co. should comprise nursery rhymes. Her father Rupert was a collector of the work of Randolph Caldecott, and Potter suggested "the book might be in a style between Caldecott's and the Baby's Opera" (Linder, p. 226). The death of Norman Warne in 1905 caused the "book of rhymes [to be] put on one side and left untouched for many years" (Linder, p. 228). In 1917, Potter returned to her earlier ideas to develop Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes.As usual with Beatrix Potter's work, there are several known variants of the same sequence. She gave a two-page version to her cousin Caroline Hutton for Christmas 1897, for example. A version on five sheets, dated February 1897, forms part of the Linder Bequest in the V&A Museum. The present set probably also dates from this time.When later developed, Potter followed a familiar process when re-working individual images from a sequence. The first image here was adapted for the front cover illustration of Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes. Instead of a mouse running with a tureen of broth to the left, she becomes the titular character running to the ri

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