Roberts painted this portrait of his close friend and colleague, Arthur Streeton (1867–1943) whose nickname was Smike, while they camped together at Little Sirius Cove on Sydney Harbour. The two artists, who had met in Melbourne, travelled to Sydney in September 1891. There, Streeton achieved considerable success painting spontaneous, lyrical views of the area around the Harbour as well as heroic landscapes of the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury River. He had earlier established, with Roberts and Charles Conder, a sketching camp at Eaglemont on the outskirts of Melbourne, where he painted some of his defining ‘blue and gold’ landscapes.

This informal ‘friendship portrait’, expresses the close bond between the two artists. In fact, Roberts kept it until his death as a memento of their time together during a highly creative period in both of their lives.