Cotman visited East Barsham, just north of Fakenham and some twenty-five miles north-west of Norwich, in 1808 and again on 17 July 1811 and 3 July 1815 (see Kitson, op. cit., pp. 149 and 166, and Rajnai and Allthorpe-Guyton, op. cit., pp. 66-7). On 31 July 1811 Cotman wrote to Dawson Turner '-Basham [sic] House is really quite beautiful, this has afforded me fresh matter and as I think it has never been done justice to I have taken the more trouble about it'; he also attacked Repton's views as 'vile things'.

There are three watercolours and three etchings of East Barsham House, one of the etchings being dated 1813. This led Kitson to see all the works as the result of the 1811 visit, though he had reservations about the view in the Norwich Castle Museum on account of its more purely watercolour technique as opposed to the approach to an oil painting technique in the second decade of the century. Rajnai and Allthorpe-Guyton, however, see the Norwich watercolour, which shows a different view of the house, as a product of the 1808 visit, while leaving this watercolour and a second version (sold at Bonham's 18 November 1992, lot 21, repr. in colour; ex H.N. Holmes and Mrs Bracecamp collections) as having been painted in about 1811 (loc. cit., their no. 66, repr., is the version in the Norwich Castle Museum)