Wilson combined work in an Edinburgh stained-glass studio with his activities as a printmaker. In 1932, he won the Royal Scottish Academy Carnegie Travelling Scholarship and took leave from his employer to study full-time at Edinburgh College of Art and travel to Spain and Italy. In Spain, he produced views of Madrid, Granada, Ronda and Toledo, including this pen and ink drawing. It shows the mountain-top city with the river Tagus below. The distinctive turreted building at the top of the city is the Alcázar of Toledo. The castle was to play an important role in a battle at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War when it was held by the Nationalists against Spanish Republican forces, just four years after this drawing was made.