Katib Gannit, Romani

Depicts a desert landscape with undulating sand and occasional palm trees. There is a palm hod with a white tent in the centre of the image and a sharp peak, with Kattib Gannit, Palestine in the background. In a letter to his wife Amy, Lambert wrote about this work: `...we visited the battle-grounds of Romani...A water colour sketch of Kalit Gamut [sic], a sandhill & hod near Romani, was also made.' (quoted in Amy Lambert 1938 `The career of G.W.Lambert A.R.A: Thirty years of an artist's life', Sydney, Society of Artists, p.91. In March 1918 Lambert visited the battle grounds of Romani, east of the Suez Canal on the Sinai coast where Allied forces in August 1916 had defeated a Turkish assault on their defences. Lambert made a number of watercolours while working in Egypt, Palestine and Gallipoli, most likely because it was a medium that was easy to carry from place to place and outdoors. Lambert uses watercolour as a tinted drawing, sketching in the outlines of the scene in pencil and building up details of the scene in light watercolour strokes or thin translucent washes.