The artist probably stood on the site of today’s intersection of Crows Nest Road and the Pacific Highway to capture the view looking across Berry Island (foreground), Greenwich Point (centre) and Cockatoo Island with Iron Cove Bridge in distance to the left. Crows Nest Cottage was built close to this location for Edward Wollstonecraft around 1820 and so named due to its elevated position – a ‘crows nest’ being the most elevated position on a tall ship for the lookout to stand watch. Upon Wollstonecraft’s death his brother-in-law Alexander Berry built a more substantial house on the site of the original cottage in 1850 and named it Crows Nest House. In 1880 he added impressive entrance gates to the property, which still stand at the Pacific Highway entrance to the North Sydney Demonstration School.

The painting is signed 'M I Coulte[r]' (the 'r' is covered by frame). W Chambers supplied the artist's christian name and said she was an unsuccessful artist who lived in Alma Street, North Sydney and died around 1934. Coulter exhibited at the Royal Artists’ Society of NSW in 1897. She was also known as Margaret I Scott (married James Scott).