Depicting, the red sails of the Thames barges with the  busy docks of the Isle of Dogs in the background this painting illustrates the changing nature of London in the Edwardian period. The mechanisation of the docks with the heavy container cranes and industrial chimneys contrast the natural wind powered wooden barges that had glided quietly up and down the Thames for close to one hundred years. Nevinson was always fascinated by the emerging mechanisation of daily life, none more so than during the First World War where his angular depictions of the devastating use of new industrial weapons changed the course British art.
The London barges were a common site on the Thames up until the end of the Second World War, many were used in the evacuation of Dunkirk. A few still remain on the Thames mostly offered for private charter.
The Isle of Dogs has now been completely redeveloped and is now best known as a commercial and financial district with Canary Wharf at its centre.

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, painter and printmaker, has been described as 'a vital and contentious figure, among the most important British artists of the twentieth century.' Nevinson studied art in London and then in Paris. In March 1914 he became a founding member of the London Group of artists, and in June of that year issued a Futurist manifesto, Vital English Art, with the Italian Futurist artist, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. During the First World War, Nevinson served in Flanders and France as an ambulance driver and became a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps. In March 1915 his first war paintings were shown at the London Group. In June and July of that year he exhibited as a Futurist at the Vorticist exhibition (Vorticism was a British derivation of Cubism and Futurism) and contributed to the second and last issue of the Vorticist magazine Blast. Nevinson's first solo show, primarily of war paintings, was held in September 1916 at the Leicester Galleries in London, and was a great success. That year he was 'invalided' out of the Army and appointed an Official War Artist in 1917. He became the first artist to draw from the air. In 1919 he visited Paris and New York. He was created Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1938, and Associate of the Royal Academy in 1939. Suffering deep depression and breakdowns as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War, his health broke down due to overwork and he died in London in October 1946.