Annotated and titled.

An elegant preparatory drawing for a print, some parts indented for transfer. With various pencil try marks.

Tomkins was mainly active as engraver. Born into a family of artists, he was the younger son of the landscape-painter William Tomkins (1730?–1792). Charles Tomkins the antiquarian draughtsman and aquatint engraver was his elder brother. He became a pupil of Francesco Bartolozzi, and he continued to work in his style.

Tomkins was engaged as drawing-master to the daughters of George III, and spent time at court, receiving the appointment of historical engraver to the queen.

At some point, as a print publisher in Bond Street, his ambitious projects involved him in heavy financial losses; he then obtained an Act of Parliament authorising him to dispose by lottery of the collection of watercolour drawings from which his engravings were executed, of which our drawing could have been very well part of it. At the time, together with unsold impressions of the plates, his stock was valued at £150,000.