It depicts a counter-attack on Welsh Ridge in northern France on 30 December 1917, during the First World War.

It shows British soldiers in heavy winter greatcoats scrambling up from their trenches to advance over a snow-covered landscape.

Two studies held by the Imperial War museum show the carefully balanced composition.

He made the painting in early 1918, having returned to England and been recommended by his brother Paul Nash to become an official war artist.

The work was commissioned by the Ministry of Information and painted in a rented seed-shed at Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire.