Previously titled 'The East Indiaman "Pitt" and other Vessels', this in fact shows the same ship in three positions - which was a standard convention of ship portraiture for captains and owners. It was also previously said to show the ship after returning from China in 1786 but (since signed and dated 1786) was presumably painted before she sailed there on her first voyage for the Company under Captain George Cowper, beginning in March that year and returning to the Downs - off the east Kent coast - in August 1787. The 775-ton vessel made a second voyage to Bencoolen and China between December 1788 and August 1790 and must have done a third and fourth rapidly thereafter since her fifth to Bengal began in June 1794, returning in October 1795: the last (August to August, 1796-98) was also to Bengal. Serres appears to have repeated this composition, since there is an almost identical painting in the Government Art Collection, London, of the Indiaman 'Francis' which also made six Company voyages, the first being in 1782-84, when (as appears in the ship's heading here) its return was to the Downs, and the last in 1796-98. The 'Francis' version is not recorded as signed or dated, but if done to mark her first voyage - as often the case - this one is probably the later version.