The viewpoint is to the east from a point on the shore near a pier. Dover Castle is on the left, a small bridge crossing a moat in the middle distance and a fort in the foreground. The Duchess has just stepped ashore from the barge and is being welcomed by the Duke of York while a salute is being fired. On the right a snow is sailing in to the shore and there are two barges pulling in. There are three yachts in the middle distance and beyond, three ships, the ‘Mary’, ‘Monck’, and ‘Bristol’. Two other yachts brought up on the left, one with the Union flag at the masthead; all are firing a salute.

The drawing is inscribed in brown ink ‘de Maniere hoedanig de ducsesse gelant is Inde baeij ontrent / het kasteel niet verre van de plaets alwaer den koning komende in / engelant gelangt is ao 1660 is no 7’ [altered from 8] (How the Duchess landed in the bay near the castle not far from the place where the King landed when he came to England in 1660). In the left foreground the annotation ‘sun’ presumably refers to a patch of sunlight.

Mary of Modena crossed over from Calais to Dover between 21 November -21 December 1673. She was met by the Duke of York and they were declared married soon after the landing. They stayed in Dover for two nights, and then went through Canterbury and Rochester to Gravesend, where they were met by the king, Charles II, in the barges between 26 November-6 December, and a royal procession was made to Whitehall that morning.