Mary Gainsborough, copied from Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of his two daughters, Mary and Margaret (ca.1758) in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Executed in watercolour, the drawing demonstrates Potter’s careful attention to detail and tonal gradation. Her brushwork is precise, mimicking the softness of Gainsborough’s original while adapting it to the transparency of water-based media. The rendering of lace, fabric folds, and hair shows her ability to translate oil-painted textures into a lighter, more intimate medium, consistent with her method of learning through replication.

The original Gainsborough painting entered the V&A’s collection in 1876 via a bequest from John Forster. Potter, a regular visitor to the museum’s Art Reading Room between the 1880s and 1890s, made multiple copies from its holdings. This watercolour, along with a separate study of Margaret Gainsborough, was part of her systematic practice of copying works by artists she admired, including Constable and Hogarth.

During this period, formal art education for women was limited, and museum study offered a vital alternative. Potter’s copying was not mere imitation but a pedagogical strategy—common among aspiring artists—to internalize composition, anatomy, and historical style. Her engagement with Gainsborough’s work was personal and sustained, noted in her journals, where she questioned his legacy even as she meticulously reproduced his forms.

Though unrelated to her later literary fame, these copies reveal the depth of Potter’s artistic discipline before she turned to illustration. They document her early engagement with British art history and her commitment to observational accuracy. Today, they serve as evidence of how museum collections functioned as informal academies for self-taught artists in the late 19th century.