The painter, topographical draughtsman and aquatint engraver Charles Tomkins (1757-1823) spent his entire career in London, although he travelled within Britain in search of his subjects. This is one of a pair of oval watercolours (the other, also in The Courtauld's collection, is D.2024.ST.3) of a rural scene that dates from very early in his career, when the artist was in his early 20s, which depicts a country inn and the barns in the yard presumably behind the same inn.