Portsmouth Dockyard (Tissot)

The painting depicts three people sitting in a rowing boat among the towering naval vessels in Portsmouth Dockyard, with another rowing boat crewed by naval personnel passing in the background before the bows of two old-fashioned square rigged ships of the line.

In the centre is a man wearing the uniform of a sergeant in a Highland Regiment, with redcoat, kilt, and feather bonnet.

Tissot's less ambiguous 1877 reworking of the subject in Portsmouth Dockyard was more favourably received, but the story remains unclear.

The same year, Tissot made a drypoint copy of the painting, which was reproduced as an etching in two editions of around 100 prints each, measuring 9.75 by 13.75 inches (248 mm × 349 mm), under the French title Entre les Deux mon Coeur balance (literally, "Between the two my heart swings"; sometimes translated as "How happy I could be with either").

The painting was sold to Sir Hugh Walpole, who left it to the Tate Gallery on his death in 1941.