Quite possibly a collaborative painting by the Marika family, which were done in the late 1950s and 1960s. The profile-view figures are similar to those painted by Malawan Marika (1908–67), while the frontal-view figures are more like those of his brothers, Mathaman and Malirrpum. The main figure, a sea tern (ngurula), was the totem of Marika.

From the estate of Steve Lewis, an anthropologist who purchased this item during the first half of the 1970s. He was graduated from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, in 1974, and traveled throughout Australia, his last trip being in 1979.