England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent's Birthday

Turner casts the famous prospect westwards from Richmond Hill in a classic style evoking the French painter Claude Lorrain and himself in a cultural continuum. The poets Alexander Pope and James Thomson, whose 'Summer' he quoted with the picture, and the painter Joshua Reynolds had lived at Richmond or nearby at Twickenham where Turner had his own property, Sandycombe Lodge.

Turner's birthday, 23 April, was also Shakespeare's, the Prince Regent's official birthday and St George's Day.