This drawing is one of a series of coastal or shore scenes executed on coarse paper in watercolour with white bodycolour. The majority are studies of fishermen and their boats in breakers near the shore, and are in the Turner Bequest (XXXIII). XXXIII-K shows a boat (evidently the same one that appears here) with BRI...TON inscribed on its transom, so the series was presumably made during a visit to Brighton. The inscription on the back of this one is unlikely to be correct in its suggestion that Turner made the drawing during a lesson: he more probably showed the group to his pupil, who chose this drawing to keep. It remained in the family of William Blake of Newhouse until 1962. There are references to ‘Wm Blake' in the 'North of England' sketchbook (No.23) f.67v, and in the 'Hereford Court' sketchbook of 1798 (T.B.XXXVIII ff.47v, 50av), and Turner was presumably teaching Blake then. It is not known how long the connection lasted. (See the drawing by Blake, No.B18.)

The style of this series of marines, with its sombre colour but spontaneous 'plein-air' treatment, is characteristic of the studies Turner made on tinted or prepared paper in conjunction with his first essays in oil painting; compare pages in the 'Wilson' sketchbook (T.B.XXVII) and in the slightly later "Dunbar' sketchbook (No.54). The subjects have much in common with the two Dobree pictures, 'Fishermen on a Lee Shore' and the so-called 'Wave' (Kenwood, Iveagh Bequest and Southampton Art Gallery).