Studio portrait of Australian officers, most likely all of the of the 4th Field Artillery Brigade ...

Studio portrait of Australian officers, most likely all of the of the 4th Field Artillery Brigade (FAB), posing with studio props in an unknown French photographic studio. Identified front row, right, is 6416 Second Lieutenant (later Lieutenant) Phillip John Rupert (Rupert) Steele, 4th FAB of Kew, Victoria. The son of Philip John Bickett Steele and Johanna Albertina nee Ekman, Lt Steele died aged 27 on 8 January 1917 of wounds sustained in France on 15 November the previous year. He is buried in St Sever Cemetery Rouen. His elder brother, Captain Frederick Wilberforce Alexander (Fred) Steele, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, was killed at the First Ypres Battle on 29 October, 1914 and has no known grave. Another brother, 2nd Lt Norman Leslie Steele, Australian Flying Corps (AFC), died while a prisoner of war in Hareira, Palestine on 20 April, 1917 of wounds sustained after his machine crashed behind Turkish lines. A third brother, Sgt Henry Cyril Augustus (Cyril) Steele, 4th FAB, had been discharged for urgent family reasons after the death of his brothers Fred and Phillip (Rupert) and was returning to Australia at the time of Norman's death. Although the toy sheep appears in another group portrait of 4th FAB officers held in the AWM National Collection, P06234.001, it is most likely a children's studio prop rather than a mascot, akin to the porcelain doll.