Throughout his career as a painter, Edward Cooke travelled extensively in Europe, visiting France, Holland, Italy, Spain, North Africa and Scandinavia. Paintings and drawings resulted from all his travels, but it is evident that the places that provided the strongest fascination for him besides the southern coastline of England were the beaches and estuaries of Holland and the topography of Venice and Italy.

This sheet of drawings is clearly related to the more finished composition of PAE5910. It comprises a series of rapid sketches of different aspects of the fish market in Boulogne, focusing on fish wives and baskets of fish. In several places they are initialled with colour annotations, indicating the potential of these drawings to be worked up into some later painting. They demonstrate an intensity of observation and concern with essential character, as well as with the representation of labour, that was typical of the mid-Victorian period.