Although Bonington was born in England, he moved to France with his parents in 1818 and enrolled in the Paris studio of Baron Gros in 1820. His painting thus belongs to the history of French art. In fact, his works rank among the most rare and beautiful of early French Romanticism: rare because Bonington died just days before his twenty-sixth birthday; beautiful because of the immediacy of his vision, the freshness of his color, and the confidence of his technique. These qualities are perfectly expressed in this small view near Rouen, which was painted outdoors, from an island in the midst of the Seine. It was probably made in the summer of 1825 while Bonington, who had already earned a medal at the previous year's Salon, was sharing a studio in Paris with Eugène Delacroix. Bonington's death in 1828 was mourned by a generation of French painters, including Delacroix, Théodore Rousseau, and Camille Corot, for whom Bonington was a conduit of the English notion of naturalistic and painterly landscape.

This picture was purchased from the direct descendant of its first owner; it is impeccably preserved and still has its original frame.