Bold color breathes life into this leisurely scene by the great British painter Christopher R. W. Nevinson. Nevinson became renowned for his depictions of the urban landscape in London later in his career, when he immortalized the architecture and urban activity of the city on canvas. This work, with its focus on boaters on the Thames, stands in contrast to some of his grittier, more city-centric works. Using a myriad of jewel-like color to capture the scene, Nevinson's work is an enduring ode to this nostalgic English pastime.

Nevinson rose to prominence as a painter of renown in the years following World War I. He had served with the Red Cross and the Royal Army of Medical Corps during the war, and later became an official war painter. His works from this period were stark, capturing the mechanized nature of modern warfare with a highly modern, Futurist-inspired style. After the war, he began to create landscape and urban scenes, though his works did not lose their steely, stark grittiness until years later.

By the mid-1920s, Nevinson turned away from the urban landscape in favor of the poeticism of the English countryside. The present work is exemplary of this later style, standing in decided contrast to the dark works that dominated his early career. The bold colors of the still life in the foreground reveals the influence of Henri Matisse on the painter - he would have encountered Matisse's work often while he studied in Paris in the years before the war. The unique framing of the work, surrounded by the foliage of a tree, is also reminiscent of Matisse's famed window compositions. In terms of mood and atmosphere, it represents a return to his pre-WWI, post-impressionist style.

With the onset of World War II, Nevinson would return to his stark wartime compositions. Due to a stroke that paralyzed his right hand, his painting ability was limited after the war; he died a few months later at the young age of fifty-seven. Today, his works can be found on the Tate London, the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art (New York), among other museums.