This painting treats a common theme in Eugène Boudin's mature art: ships at harbor. Boudin typically did not depict the busy commercial life or human tasks related to ships; rather, he seemed always to strive for an overall mood of calm, harmony, and light. Although Boudin's brushwork was quite sketchy at this time, he was still able to suggest the complex sails and structures of large vessels. Here he rubbed light tones around the ships' masts, often overlapping the darker lines of the wood and rigging with white or gray tones as if to evoke the passing wind and shifting positions common to nautical life.