The plate, R.40, was issued in Part VIII of the Liber Studiorum. The measurements engraved in the margin refer to the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1797 (344) and now untraced, of which this is the only record. It was, therefore, in Turner's standard three-foot by four-foot size, larger than ‘Moonlight, a Study at Millbank', the only other oil exhibited in 1797, and may have been seen by Turner as a daylight pendant to 'Fishermen at Sea' of the year before.

Contemporary reviews drew attention to the originality of Turner's view of Nature and singled out for praise 'the sickly appearance of a setting Sun at Sea, preparatory to a storm' (Times, 3 May) and the 'transparency and undulation' of the water (Anthony Pasquin in the Morning Post, 5 May), and the painting probably gave clearer evidence of Turner's advancing powers.