Coastal scene with figures and a horse on a beach in the foreground and sailing boats beyond; and A ship in rough seas off the coast with rescuers on a beach in the foreground

Luny received his early training from the marine painter Francis Holman (fl.1760-1790) and became a member of the Thames group of marine painters based around Deptford, which was greatly influenced by the work of the Dutch seventeenth-century marine painters the van de Veldes. He exhibited at the Society of Artists between 1777 and 1778, and regularly at the Royal Academy from 1780. In 1807, Luny moved to Teignmouth, on the Devon coast, and began to focus on naval events and local coastal views such as these. This pair of pictures is among the last that Luny would have painted before he developed arthritis in the mid-1820s and was forced to paint with a brush held between his fists, or strapped to his wrists.