An interpretation of a sea and skyscape at sunset. The flat sea washes up towards a beach in the foreground of the painting. The artist has positioned two small fishing boats on the right to create a sense of receding distance, as well as acting as a gauge for scale. In the foreground, two fishermen on the beach attend to the nets, which run to the sea in a sinuous line along the foreshore. The half-stooping man on the left half looks up and engages the viewer, while his companion turns away. Two other figures walk along the shoreline on the left. The depiction of the sky occupies half the canvas, accentuating and echoing the calm scene as darkness approaches. The clarity of light from the setting sun is emphasized in the reflections of the men on the beach.

Henry Moore began his career under Pre-Raphaelite influence and later turned to painting open seascape. The sea was often the central motif of his paintings, a theme that became increasingly popular for the Victorians. As he progressed he developed a freer technique and became more impressionistic, a transition implied in this painting which is signed and dated bottom left, 'H Moore, 1874'. This painting may have originally be titled 'Setting night nets between the tides' – the title of painting no. 71 in the 1874 autumn exhibition of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, where it was priced as £220-6-0 and no. 10 exhibited at the Society of British Artists 1874 no. 10 and priced at £210.