Ruskin was initially full of praise for Landseer's work, describing, for example, The old Shepherd's Chief Mourner as being one of the most perfect poems or pictures which modern times have seen'. But he later began to find fault with the artist's work, in particular his use of colour and treatment of animals, citing 'The Old Cover Hack' as an example, criticising his use of shadow in the background of the picture: 'One of its points of light is on the rusty iron handle of a pump, in the shape of an S. The sun strikes the greater part of its length, illuminating the perpendicular portion of the curve; yet shadow is only cast on the wall behind by the returning portion of the lower extremity. A smile may be excited by the notice of so trivial a circumstance; but the simplicity of the error renders it the more remarkable, and the great masters of chiaroscuro are accurate in all such minor points; a vague sense of greater truth results from this correctness, even when it is not in particulars analyzed or noted by the observer

Correspondence exists in the British Institution from Lewis to Jacob Bell about the print. Bell (1810-1859), the founder of the Pharmaceutical Society and a patron the arts. He was a life-long friend of Landseer whom he probably met at Sass's Academy, and took under his wing, acting as the artist's business manager, financial adviser, companion and sometimes as model for figures in his pictures, for example, 'Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time'.

In the 1959 catalogue entry the painting was said to have been signed on the reverse in pencil

Sold together with the horse's tail, the case inscribed on the reverse 'Tail of Scarbro/The Old Cover Hack died about 1848 aged 25'