The painting's full title is Calais Pier, with French Poissards preparing for Sea: an English Packet arriving.

The painting was inspired by a visit Turner made to Calais, France, the previous year when the Peace of Amiens led to a brief break in the French Revolutionary War against France.

[2] Turner's contemporary John Constable was privately critical of both this work and Turner's The Opening of the Vintage of Macon after viewing them at the Royal Academy, as he felt the artist had become "more and more extravagant and less attentive to nature".

[3] However, art critic John Ruskin later hailed it as the first painting to display "Turner's colossal power".

[4] The work is now in the collection of the National Gallery having been part of the Turner Bequest of 1856.