A format size that the artist favored for personal works, rather than the clipper portraits and yacht commissions performed on larger canvases for owners and captains, this horizontal yachting scene features three sailing yachts at leisure off an eastern shore. While the primary focus is on the two sloops and a schooner showing her flags, several more distant sails are visible. Beyond, a vast headland with elevations is in view, expressing the location to be one between two distant but visible shores, likely a stretch of Connecticut beach looking toward New York across Long Island Sound. Or is it on the north shore of Long Island, looking across?
Quite interesting is Buttersworth's portrayal of the water, with the rolling surf in the foreground, putting him on a beach rather than at sea in this little gem of a painting. The sky opens with a warm, luminous glow bracketed with heavier clouds left and right, a trademark style Buttersworth learned from his grandfather Thomas Sr. The light qualities are subtle yet pleasing, accenting the glow of the sails and white-water froth. The emerald green wave of the curl is cool and inviting in the foreground.
A nice bonus to this painting is that it is still in its original American frame, which is in untouched, aged condition. The painting is quite unusual and desirable by this sought after artist.
