In the distance are two sailing vessels, ghosting on a light breeze towards the spectators on the shore.

The painting is probably a view of the Baltic Sea, near Friedrich's birthplace in Swedish Pomerania.

The work was commissioned by banker and art collector Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener, together with a second work, The Lonely Tree (Der einsame Baum), to create a pair of "times of the day", depicting morning and evening landscape scenes, in a tradition of Claude Lorrain.

It was completed before November 1822 and has been held by the Berlin National Gallery since 1861, donated by Wagener as part of its founding collection.

A similarly named but much larger painting from 1821 has been held by the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg since 1928, and was formerly in the Ropsha Palace [de; fr], and had been hung in the drawing room of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich; it measures 137 × 170 centimetres (54 × 67 in).