Hunt was a pioneer in the use of opaque bodycolour to achieve painterly effects for light and texture in watercolour painting. He painted interior views throughout his career, focusing in particular on scenes of contemporary rural life, showing figures in barns and outhouses with an extraordinary feel for the details of construction and for the appearance of decay in old buildings. The domestic interiors range from modest cottage interiors to a brilliant series of rooms in his various residences made for the 6th Duke of Devonshire in the 1820s. Many of the exhibited interiors are not identified and among those that are identified a number can be matched with known works in public and private collections. Among the remaining titled works there are views of rooms in a London house in Devonshire Place, two views of rooms at Stratfieldsaye, the country mansion of the Duke of Wellington and views of rooms in houses in Hastings. Craig Englund, specialist on the work of Hunt has given his opinion that this view dates from the 1840s but cannot be in the Hastings houses, nor is it a room in the house of Hunt's patron John Curtis. The location for the moment eludes identification, but the clues that will lead to the answer are in the collection of Dutch seventeenth century paintings and in the most curious feature on the right, a source of bright light enclosed by a gilt picture frame and shaded by a heavy curtain