The painting depicts six young men at Newporth Beach near Falmouth on a summer's day, in and about a rowing boat on the sea by the shoreline.

The painting is ambiguous, and can be read in several ways: as a celebration of athletic masculinity; a representation of the innocence and purity of youth, unselfconscious in a natural setting; an image of a lost rural idyll; a depiction of the sons of empire; or (in the aftermath of the Boer War) as celebration of pleasure and an implicit criticism of the militarisation of youth.

The title Ruby, Gold and Malachite – referring to the red, yellow and green tones used in the work – echo an essay by John Addington Symonds, and may refer back to the opening lines of a poem "The Sundew" published by Algernon Swinburne in 1866: "A little marsh-plant, yellow-green, // And pricked at lip with tender red".

Pictures of naked youths outside of a classical context were not generally acceptable in this period, with a notable exception for depictions of bathing: another prominent example is Thomas Eakins' The Swimming Hole (1883–5).

His work remained popular until the First World War ended the gilded age of late Victorian and Edwardian England.