The Mellors and Kirk sale catalogue states that the drawing was

sold with a letter from D C Baskett of P & D Colnaghi & Co Ltd to Geoffrey Cross Esq 13 January 1947 in which the writer discloses that Mr Oppé feels that your drawing is partly the work of Francis Towne and partly by one of his pupils. The penwork and some of the wash being by Towne and the rest by the pupil. Mr Cross has subscribed the observation that Baskett himself inclines to think that it is all by Towne.

However, although the strong colouring helps the composition hang together, the washes are applied too roughly, and the sky altogether too much of a mess, to consider this to be Towne’s own work.