During the 1870s Wyllie exhibited a number of paintings of fisher folk on the coast of northern France where the family spent their summers. Wyllie and his wife returned for a holiday at Berck-sur-Mer in 1891. This provided Wyllie with subjects for a one-man show held at the Fine Art Society the following year called 'Holiday Drawings in France and Italy' which was accompanied by a narrative by Mrs Wyllie. The watercolours of the wide expanses of the French coast are among Wyllie's most skilful and charming. They reflect his concern with the science of perspective about which he was to write ten years later. The watercolour is signed 'WL Wyllie'.