This painting is not unusual in Monet's oeuvre: the high line of the horizon, the off-centre framing of the subject, the osmosis between sea and sky, all these elements are within the style of this master. Monet painted this work in a region he had known well since his youth and in a location where he met a number of friends who influenced him in his early years: Boudin, Jongkind, Courbet. He briefly sojourned in Trouville at the end of the month of August of 1881, at a time when his complicated sentimental life and his financial worries made him want to keep away from Alice Hoschedé. Evidence of his stay on the Norman coast is a letter to Durand-Ruel dated on 13 September, in which the artist told him he had had to shorten his stay due to the bad weather and come back empty-handed, without being able to bring home any works.