The first owner of the present drawing, Enaid Jones, enrolled at the Slade School of Art in 1910. Her fellow students included Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, CRW Nevinson and Stanley Spencer. Augustus John had been part of an earlier Slade intake in the late 1890s and, on account of his exceptional technical drawing skills, was revered as the star draughtsman of his generation.

Subsequent critical opinion on John's career widely agrees that his finest work was produced in his early years. Rebecca John has dated the present drawing to c. 1900-05, and believes it was drawn either in Paris or Marseilles. She writes, 'The draughtsmanship tells me it was drawn in the 1900s when he would draw the face in lovely detail and the rest in wonderful bold lines, adding scribbles and shading at great speed. His best period.'