This pair of hungry lions caught in the light of a sentry's flaming torch has been cut from the larger work shown at the Royal Academy in 1915. Painted at the outset of the First World War, it depicts an episode in Xenophon's account of the perilous 1,500-mile retreat from Persia made by the Greek army in the 4th century BC. Outside the picture, Britain's men were fighting in a different kind of foreign wasteland, where — as one critic noted — Rivière's 'warrior of old, with lance and shield' would certainly have been 'in contrast with our men carrying bayonets throwing hand-grenades and wearing respirators', amongst the 'long-range guns and poisonous gases' (The Northern Whig & Building News and Engineering Journal, both 1915).

Rivière presumably cut this out of the picture at some point after its exhibition, keeping the lions, which remained with his family until now. The artist had a history of cutting up his own work: first, 'Hamlet and Ophelia' — torn into strips and thrown into the flames — and later, 'Girl under the Sea', which Rivière admitted he cut 'to pieces too, later on'. But, he 'kept a few pieces, as I thought the study of the anemones would be useful' (The Strand Magazine, vol. XI, 1896).

Rivière was principally an animal painter. He drew lions from life at the Regent's Park zoo, as the staff attempted to keep them still with 'the aid of a piece of meat on a long pole' (The Nottinghamshire Weekly Express, 1903).