This sketch is a preparatory study for Qua-qua, Witzieshock, South Africa, Royal Academy, 1916, no. 611, painted in the Drakensberg region of South Africa where the Orange River rises, near the border with Lesotho. The flat-topped massifs and the treeless grasslands seen in the painting are typical of the region, as are the low clouds found at such high altitudes. 

Gotch, an English painter from Newlyn in Cornwall, travelled to South Africa with his wife in 1912 to rescue their daughter Phyllis, a singer who had accepted a Vaudeville contract there and had run out of money and fallen ill. She recovered, and later married, staying there, but her father loved the country so much that he built a second career there, often returning to paint and hold exhibitions.