Juan de Barroeta (1835-1906) was born in Bilbao, Spain. His father, a decorative painter, gave him early lessons in art, and he later went on the enrol at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He twice tried unsuccessfully to win a scholarship to the Spanish Academy in Rome, before returning to Bilbao 1859 where he became a popular and prosperous painter of portraits. His style has a photographic quality, with its crisp detail and careful use of light. This landscape, of the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic Ocean, is flooded with jewel-like colour, light and airiness, and filled with interesting details of everyday life.
