Lionel Bulmer studied at the Royal College of Art between 1944 and 1948. In his subsequent career he concentrated on the landscape around Southwold and Walberswick in Suffolk. His style is characterised by crisply-defined areas of colour united by a strong sense of design, evident in this calm interior scene. Lady Fermoy purchased this watercolour from the Royal Watercolour Society’s Autumn Exhibition in 1961 and seems later to have presented it to Queen Elizabeth. She was Queen Elizabeth’s Lady-in-Waiting from 1960 and the grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.