There he met William Hilton, whose sister he was later to marry. Hilton was a native of Lincoln and de Wint first visited the city with him in 1806, exhibiting Lincolnshire subjects from 1809. The View of Lincoln is a preparatory sketch for the oil painting, from the Tatlock collection, which is already in The Collection. The artist's daughter, Harriet, stressed the importance of Lincolnshire for his work: 'what a common-place observer would consider flat and unmeaning was in his eyes picturesque. The long extensive distances with their ever varying effects, the flats bordering the river covered with cattle, the groups of cattle in the Brayford, the cornfields and hayfields, and above all the magnificent cathedral seen from so many points, afforded him unceasing delight' (H de Wint, A Short Memoir of the Life of Peter de Wint and William Hilton RA, published privately c 1900).