A watercolour of the ruins at Lebida (Leptis Magna), near Tripoli, with figures in the foreground. The artist possibly seen on the far left, sketching. An accompanying letter from the artist (Royal Archives GEO/ADD/56/1), undated, states that the sketch was made in the company of Captain Smyth and the Consul General, Colonel Hanmer Warrington.

Augustus Earle was born in London, the son of American parents, and probably trained at the Royal Academy. Much of his artistic career was spent travelling around the world, including to Brazil, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, India and the Pacific. Many of his drawings are in the National Library of Australia. His drawings provide significant documentation of European attitudes to colonisation and its effects on Indigenous people and landscapes.

This drawing was made during Earle's tour of the Mediterranean in 1815–17, during which time he visited Malta, Sicily, Gibraltar and North Africa, making drawings of antiquities and ruins. The site of Leptis Magna near Tripoli was an important ancient Phoenician and Roman city. In 1816, Earle visited the site with Colonel Hanmer Warrington. Hoping to emulate the stripping of the Parthenon marbles by Lord Elgin the previous year, Warrington attempted to remove large parts of the ruins of Leptis Magna to England for the British Museum, an act that was strongly resisted by Libyan locals. The remains sat in the forecourt of the British Museum for some time before they were given to George IV's architect, Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, who used them to create an 'ornamental folly' at Virginia Water, supplementing the stones with other blocks and naming it the 'Temple of Augustus'.