The water colour was made between 1835 and 1838, just before the start of the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842). Godfrey Thomas Vigne was born in England in 1801. He studied law (and became an accomplished cricketer), but left England in 1831 and for a short while travelled in the Americas. The following year, after his return home, he left England again and journeyed overland through Iran to British India. He travelled extensively in the borderlands and in 1836 visited Kabul, where he had a meeting with the Kabul Amir, Dost Mohammed Khan. His travels in Afghanistan were laid down in A Personal Narrative of a Visit to Ghuzni, Kabul, and Afghanistan, published in London in 1840. This book includes numerous sketches.
The same illustration was included in the panorama of Kabul that was displayed by Robert Burford in the Rotunda near Leicester Square in 1842.
V&A online catalogue (retrieved 12th May 2017).
WV