This is an unusual view, looking back from Garden Island towards Sydney Cove, with the new Government House silhouetted against a rich sunset. It was painted almost 100 years before Garden Island was connected to Potts Point through the construction of the Captain Cook Graving Dock, an extensive dry dock facility.

This brightly toned painting was one of the works of which the Sydney Morning Herald in 1847 complained, ‘were praiseworthy for their correctness and attention to details [but] Mr Peacock must look at nature through warm coloured spectacles’.