A woman standing by a well; water pots to her left, ox-drawn curtained carriage behind. Signed, dated and inscribed: Wm Simpson/1875./Village woman, Dehli. 

Between 1858 and 1861 William Simpson travelled almost 23,000 miles through India, Tibet and Kashmir. His journey was partly carried out in the train of Lord Canning who, soon after Simpson's arrival in Calcutta (now Kolkata), invited him to join his viceregal camp for the triumphal progress through locations in which the Indian Rebellion had taken place.Simpson displayed drawings related to this period at the Burlington Galleries, in June-July 1876, where they were seen by the Prince and Princess of Wales. They were then sent to Windsor Castle to be seen by Queen Victoria. The exhibition included a picture entitled Woman at a village well near Dehli, which is perhaps the present sheet, or a version of it. A watercolour also showing a  brick well with wooden pulley to draw water, exhibited at the German Gallery, 1864 as The Village Well (no. 154), is perhaps a version of the present sheet.