Webber is best known for the work he produced on Captain Cook's third Pacific voyage aboard Resolution. Departing in July 1776 he spent four years aboard, drawing topographical, ethnographical, and natural history subjects. On his return he was appointed to redraw and direct the engraving of sixty-one plates for the official account, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean..., 1784. He exhibited voyage subjects at the Royal Academy from 1784 to 1787, before returning to predominantly British and European landscapes. The present drawing was made on his 1791 tour of North Wales, the same year he was elected as a Royal Academician.
Bont Newydd sits in the Aber valley, just below Cader Idris, and so was a key stop on a picturesque tour of Wales in the late 18th Century. Webber also visited Lake Bala, a little further along the valley (see lot 56).