Study of Arbutus shrub, Gallipoli

Lambert was fascinated by the details of the landscape as much as the battlefield sites. On his arrival at Gallipoli in January 1919 he noted: "The chief local colour is made up of local scrub about 2ft high manages [?] on sandy clay with stones & gravel. The scrub is greenish with nice dead stuff showing grey purple here & there. I propose getting a record of the various plants & flowers." Lambert was an official First World War artist, who was in the Middle East between 13 Jan 1918 to June 1918. With C.E.W. Bean he travelled on Historical Mission to Gallipoli from Feb-Mar 1919, then revisited Palestine. This drawing was made on 2 March 1919 according to a letter written to Lambert's wife Amy, dated 2 March, he wrote; 'In the afternoon I mounted a new horse lent by the Division at Chanak, a good Irish hunter, and rode over to Hughes' Camp and back....Late afternoon I did a water-colour of the first of a series of bushes and plants which I think should be recorded; a study of arbutus, rather a wax-like leaf with a sort of blossom something like a laurel but with red stalks.' (Lambert. A., `The career of G.W.Lambert ARA: thirty years of an artist's life', Sydney, Society of Artists, 1938, p.110.)