Australian artist George Washington Lambert moved to London in 1894 on a traveling scholarship awarded to him by the New South Wales Society of Artists. There, he exhibited mainly portraits at the Royal Academy, until 1917, when he journeyed to Palestine with the Australian Light Horse as their official War Artist. Over the next few months, Lambert sketched what he described as the 'inspiring background of hills' across Jordan and Syria, drawing members of his company in the meantime. By May 1918, he had completed 117 works, dozens of which were exhibited in December at the Royal Academy's 'War and Peace' exhibition organised by the Society of Australian Artists. Lambert contributed around 35 pencil portraits to the show of war pictures, all nearly the same size and drawn in the same manner as ours, which depicts a British officer (as his regimental badge suggests).

Most of the exhibited drawings are now in the collection of the Australian War Memorial, but there are two sketches of British officers that are unaccounted for. It's possible that our drawing was exhibited in the 1918 show as either Major E Woolmer, a Lancashire Fusilier, or Major RC Greenwood, Highland Light Infantry. 

After the war. Lambert returned to Australia, remaining friends with one of his portrait sitters, Major General Granville Ryrie of the Australian Light Horse.