This is one of 262 drawings and 2 paintings presented to the Museum by the artist's family in 2012, and related to John Kingsley Cook's wartime service in the merchant navy, between December 1940 and August 1945. This drawing was made while the artist was kept in captivity in barracks in Bone, Algeria, after his ship the Empire Guillemot was sunk by Italian airplanes on 24 October 1941 and the survivors washed ashore on the coast of Algeria, then part of occupied France.
The back of the drawing is marked with the title, in the artist's hand: 'Group of Poileaus in the Sun'.