Webb attended Ealing and Chiswick Schools of Art before winning a scholarship to the Patrick Allen Fraser of Hospitalfield College of Art, Arbroath in 1925. There, after the etcher Henry Daniel joined the staff in 1927, Webb was encouraged to take up etching. He returned to Chiswick in 1928 to study etching with Hubert Schroeder.

Webb visited Griggs in Chipping Campden in 1929, who printed demonstration impressions of the Rat Barn and the Dream Barn. Dream Barn went through fifteen progress trial proof states before completion. Webb therefore annotated this impression of the completed, 16th, final state as 1st state. The working title of the plate changed too, from Deathwatch, to High Cradle Dream, to High Cradle Dream and Eastern Star, even Rat Barns’s Bride, before finalisation as Dream Barn.

In 1930 Webb took over teaching Schroeder’s etching class at Chiswick Art School. During these years, 1928-31, Webb was at the height of his activity and mastery as an etcher, culminating in an exhibition at Colnaghi in 1933.

This print is annotated 1st state, and printed on cream laid paper. Slight foxing.