First Fleet artwork collection

Nocturnal fishing scene painted predominantly in brown-grey monochrome, with some pale washes of blue and yellow in the sky and water, and red detail for the fire. In the lower centre of the picture is a canoe, in which an aboriginal man stands pointing his fishing spear over the near-side of the boat. Behind him sits a woman with a paddle in her left hand and a flaming torch in her right, which she holds over the near-side of the boat above the water, apparently to attract the fish. The scene is framed by a rocky shore in the foreground and headlands to left and right in the middle distance. The moon is visible to the right of the sky, casting beams of light over the sea. The drawing is framed by a double-banded border, the inner band of which is filled with black wash. It is annotated in brown ink below the border.