Handmade literary-inspired garden sculptures, miniatures and water features, based on characters from Lewis Carroll’s famous book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. From the Mad Hatter and Alice to the White Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts, these hot cast bronze and cold cast bronze outdoor features are designed to suit any garden space.
“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.”
Beatrix Potter is one of the most beloved children's writers of the modern era, and her hugely popular books have been capturing the imagination of readers of all ages since the early-1900s.
A writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist; she has created some of classic literature’s most memorable characters. Taking inspiration from the landscape and wildlife of the Lake District and the Scottish Highlands, she is best known for her twenty-three children’s tales, including The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin.
So many of the sculptures, water features, and miniatures from the Robert James Workshop collection are inspired by the English writer’s hand-drawn illustrations and rich, enduring stories—and the everlasting charm of her work can be found in the handmade bronze creations you find here today.
From the pages of Beatrix Potter’s famous books, to your garden, each character embodying a sense of enchantment and magic.
“Always speak the truth, think before you speak, and write it down afterwards.”
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym, Lewis Carroll, was a true Renaissance man of the Victorian Era. An accomplished mathematician, poet, satirist, philosopher, inventor, and photographer, Carroll was best known as the author of the children’s classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. A widely-popular book series of its time and one that continues to fill bookshelves around the world today; entertaining and enchanting readers of all ages.
While Carroll’s writing style is rich with flights of fancy, brilliantly nonsensical themes and larger-than-life characters, typified by the Wonderlands series, he also intertwined real-life elements into his sprawling fantasy tales. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, for example, introduces characters and individuals known to Carroll—he also makes fun of popular songs and poems of the Victorian age.
Since its publication in 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has never been out of print. The book has been translated into more than 170 languages and adapted into cartoons, movies, plays, and immersive theatre.
The list of memorable, enduring characters from Carroll’s masterworks is a long one: The Mad Hatter, The White Rabbit, The Queen of Hearts, The Cheshire Cat, The Dodo—purportedly named after the stammering Do-do Dodson himself—The Dormouse, Alice, The Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar, The Knave, and The Sleeping Gryphon to name but two handfuls. Indeed, this timeless Victorian children’s tale, and the creations that live within its pages, are forever a source of inspiration for the Robert James Workshop sculpture collection.