About the Artwork

THE TALE OF PIGLING BLAND published 1913

1913 was a busy year for Beatrix Potter. Despite illness, she has arrangements to make for her marriage to William Heelis and their new home, Castle Cottage, to prepare. Beatrix Potter only just managed to finish ‘The Tale of Pigling Bland’ for publication in that year, writing to a friend, “I’m afraid it was done in an awful hurry and scramble.” Nevertheless, it is a delightful story, which had been germinating in Beatrix’s mind for some years. In 1909 she had described the sale of two of the Hill Top farm pigs in a letter to Milly Warne. “Their appetites were fearful - five meals a day and not satisfied.” Pig-wig, too, was a real animal, a black Berkshire pig whom Beatrix kept as a pet. She dedicated the story to the two children of the farmer who supplied her with Pig-wig, “For Cecily and Charlie. A Tale of a Christmas Pig.”