Shown at the R.A. with verses from David Mallet’s ‘Amyntor and Theorora’, Canto I:
—Now rose,
Sweet Evening, solemn hour, the sun decline’d,
Hung golden o’er this nether firmament,
Whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,
Gave back his beamy visage to the sky
With splendour undiminish’d.

The drawing was purchased by J. J. Angerstein. Farington (Diary, 27 May 1799) records that the price of 40 guineas ‘was fixed by Mr. A. and was much greater than Turner would have asked'. A critic at the Academy was 'struck and delighted with ... Caernarvon Castle, the sun setting in gorgeous splendour behind its shadowy towers ... in water colours; to which he has given a depth and force of tone, which I had never before conceived attainable with such untoward implements' (quoted by Finberg, 1961, p.57).