Little is known about Atkins, a marine painter in watercolour, who exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1787 and 1808 and was away at sea visiting the East Indies and China Coast 1796-1804. Unlike the views of the Royal Dockyard at Deptford painted by John Cleveley in the 1750s, this watercolour is unusual in that it depicts an ordinary working shipyard on the Thames, probably at Deptford. It is signed by the artist.