In August 1798 Raphael Lamar West travelled to America to survey some land that William Beckford (1760-1844), one of his father's patrons, was considering buying in the New York State. In her catalogue of drawings from this expedition in the Pierpont Morgan Library, Ruth Kraemer suggests that the purchase had been proposed by Benjamin West and his fellow American artist John Trumbull (R. Kraemer, Drawings by Benjamin West and his son Raphael Lamar West, The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, p. 96). Although it has been suggested that West owned the property himself and hoped to sell it to Beckford, the choice of Raphael Lamar as an independent surveyor suggests otherwise; as does the report to Beckford advising against the purchase due to an unjustifiably high price.
Raphael Lamar made records of his journey in the form of sketches, which he then traced and worked up before sending back to Beckford via Benjamin West, as information about the progress of his survey. Although the landscape in the present drawing has not been identified, stylistically it is close to this group, and the dramatic landscape certainly recalls that of upstate New York, specifically the Catskill Mountains.