Beatrix Potter – Expensive Rabbits

A small drawing of a group of very civilized rabbits tickled the art world by selling for over $500,000 in London recently.

Expected to sell for about $80,000 at Sotheby’s in London, the illustration, ”The Rabbits’ Christmas Party: The Departure” by Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, instead found several buyers willing to pay over four times the pre-sale estimate.

In the end, the ink and watercolor drawing was sold to a British buyer for $578,700, the highest price ever paid for a book illustration at auction.

In the drawing, several rabbits are shown donning their coats, thanking their hosts and exchanging holiday kisses under a bunch of mistletoe hung from the rafters.

It is the final scene of a story written and illustrated by Potter in about 1892.  Full article