Steer had had a one man show at the Goupil Gallery in London at the beginning of 1894 and then spent the summer in Boulogne and in Rye, where he started a large painting (94x138.4cm, untraced) titled Rye from the Cemetery and painted this little panel of low tide at the rise of a new moon. Amongst the critics at the beginning of the 1890s generally there had been a backlash against 'the French influence' seen most obviously in the New English Art Club, the showcase for British attempts at 'direct' painting (inchoate impressions with little drawing), and essays in the divisionist technique of Seurat. Steer seems to have responded by painting little panels in a manner more Manet than Monet, and 17 out of the 43 exhibits in the Goupil show were little panels such as this.