[2] The painting shows a nude woman lying on the edge of a rocky sea shore, with her head turned to gaze backward over her shoulder towards the viewer.

[2] Cox identified some features in the painting which he described as "grace of attitude", the well-rounded but slim body of a young woman, the visible dimple in the shoulder, the "savoring of subtle line", the "loveliness of the color", the "solid yet mysterious modelling", and the "perfection of delicate surface".

[2][4] Art historian Bailey Van Hook identified The Pearl and the Wave as one of the examples of nude paintings where the subject woman is shown lying down sluggishly for the gratification of the looker-on who she describes as "voyeuristic viewer".

[2] Nineteenth-century French art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary commented that the woman in the painting may be "a Parisian modiste ... lying in wait for a millionaire gone astray in this wild spot.

[7] Today the painting is in the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the main Spanish national art museum.