By contrast with Groenewegen's highly finished watercolours made for sale to collectors, this loosely handled and sketchier drawing is a more personal record of observed reality. It is the largest and most free in handling from a group of 56 small studies of Dutch shipping in the Museum's collection.

Groenewegen spent all his life in Rotterdam, living just outside the town on the Westzeedijk. Like his father he was a ship's carpenter, but took up art when, as a young man, he lost part of his leg in an accident. He made drawings from 1779 until his death in 1826, and etched 84 illustrations of ship types.