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. It is inscribed, in the hand of the artist, on the recto: '4th Engineer cutting the Chief's hair. March 22.' and on the verso: 'Studies of the barber at work'. It was drawn while on board the ship 'Empire Guillemot', which was sunk by the Italian airforce on 24 October 1941. The support is the back of a fragment of a navigational chart showing soundings, part of a compass rose, graticule, and lines for magnetic variation.