Sold inscribed lower left under mount:
Farm yard & c, from the interior of a Barn. Suttonspen and brown and black ink over pencil
23.3 by 32.8 cm., 9 by 12 3/4 inches
Suttons stands on the edge of the parish of Stapleford Tawney, five miles south-east of Epping. The house was originally 17th century and was bought by Charles Smith (1757-1814) of Mile End, Middlesex for ?15,725 in 1787. On his death, the house was renovated and was 'cased in brickwork and covered with stucco........ the weather boarded outbuildings and brick dovecote are probably 18th century' (
A history of the County of Essex, vol. IV, ed. By W.R. Powell, 1956, p.236).
Charles Smith's daughter Emma married James Edward Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen's nephew in 1828. His
Memoir of Jane Austen was published in 1870.
The house was inherited by Sir Charles Cunliffe Smith, Bt., in 1838 and descended with the baronetcy until it was sold in 1959 on the death of Sir Thomas Hamilton-Spencer-Smith.