In 1885, three young artists – Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts and Louis Abrahams – set up an artists’ camp at Box Hill, Victoria. The trio shared an interest in French Impressionism, advocated painting en plein air (‘out of doors’), and sought to capture fleeting atmospheric effects. The young English artist Charles Conder, who had been exploring similar approaches in Sydney, and Arthur Streeton, whom McCubbin met while painting at Beaumaris on Port Phillip Bay, soon joined them. 

Affecting a Bohemian attitude and communing with nature, the group made excursions to Mentone and nearby beaches. Camps were also held at Eaglemont, where Streeton and Conder shared a cottage and gave lessons to students from the National Gallery School; and at Heidelberg, on the outskirts of Melbourne from which the ‘Heidelberg School’ derives its name. In this painting, Streeton took the eastern afterglow as his subject, rather than the conventional view of the western sky at sunset – an idea the artist credited to Tom Roberts.