Snaffles (Charles Johnson Payne) British 1884-1967 is considered by many as one of the greatest sporting and military artist of his time. The Peshawar Vale was originally published in 1932 and appeared in a number of variants. The subject derives from Snaffles's "Indian period", which began in 1927 when he sailed to India via the Suez Canal and stayed with his friend Taffy Walwyn. During his time in India he travelled extensively with sporting friends and enjoyed a Raj lifestyle with sahibs and servants, polo and shooting, clubs and messes, and plenty of 'shikar', or field sports. He also spent a considerable time with one of the famous Indian cavalry regiments, the Scinde Horse, from which many of his Indian-period sketches and paintings derive. He also traveled throughout northern India up the Khyber to Peshawar, Meerut and Muttra. In Peshawar he stayed with Major Victor Wakely, whipper-in to the Peshawar Vale Hounds. The Peshawar Vale Hunt met at 6 o'clock in the morning to pursue jackal over a stiff country of banks, ditches and rivers, into one of which Snaffles notably fell. Whilst with the Peshawar Vale Hunt, his host was Colonel Kerans, who remarked to him that the countryside through which they hunted was not unlike that of Limerick and Meath. When The Peshawar Vale was eventually published, he therefore added to one of the variants the caption "Begad! This would stop them Meath fellers". The rider in the foreground may be Colonel Kerans himself.

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