Alfred Sisley was the only major Impressionist artist to work in Wales, spending July to September 1897 in Penarth, near Cardiff, and Langland Bay, on the Gower Peninsula. These paintings of south Wales, which explore the effects of light and weather, are his only seascapes, and recall Monet's views of the Breton Coast. Sisley had married his long-term partner Eugénie Lescouzec during his stay in Penarth, and the visit to Langland Bay was their honeymoon, though both were in declining health.
The Langland Bay pictures fall into two groups: firstly, views along the beach at Lady's Cove (now called Rotherslade Bay), overlooked by the Osborne Hotel, where he stayed; secondly, a number of paintings centred on Storr's Rock. He was fascinated by this enormous, isolated outcrop of rock close to the hotel and painted it at varying stages of the tide. This painting shows the north face of the rock at low tide on a sunny evening.
