In a letter to Prout of 29 April 1844 Ruskin noted:
I was at the private view of the water-colour yesterday, and was much disappointed at seeing so little there from your hand... Cattermole has made a splash, and gone head over ears,- a vast piece of paper covered with cleaver drawing, but I don't know where to look in it,- some people are fighting for a bridge, and two trunks of trees are fighting for your attention. There is no art in it, but there is a nice feeling for costume, and good bending of legs and bodies and whiskers, and it forms a feature in the room. (Works, 38.339)
John James Ruskin purchased a number of pictures by Cattermole: The Refectory, was bought in 1840, and in 1842 he purchased an additional three works; Drinking, Charles, and fal. In 1842 he must have tired of Drinking and attempted to sell it ( Burd, Ruskin Family Letters, Vol 2 p.726). Ruskin's father was critical of aspects of Cattermole 's work. As early as 1839, he told his wife to 'look at Mondays morning Chronicle & morning Post-just my notion of Cattermole 's faults.' ( Burd, Ruskin Family Letters, Vol 2 p.607). The critic had noted Cattermole 's Sir Walter Raleigh witnessing the Execution of the Earl of Essex in the Tower.
This production has much spirit, though it occasionally exhibits incorrectness in drawing; and the composition is not by any means of an inferior character, though to take away some of the confusion which pervades it would be a great improvement. ( Burd, Ruskin Family Letters, Vol 2 p. 608)
Despite certain doubts about Cattermole 's work, the Ruskin family still owned a picture by the artist which John James Ruskin graphically describes as positioned on the drawing room wall at the family home Denmark Hill in 1845 ( Shapiro, Ruskin in Italy, p 246).