Setting in of the Monsoon at Madras

The picture appears to be either the model for or a copy of the plate in William Daniell's Oriental Annual published in 1834, the heavy figures in the foreground just as in the engraving by W.J. Cooke, suggesting a copy, but the handling of the sea, dramatic sky and background closer to Daniell. The pink sky reflects Caunter's 'descriptive account' of the oncoming storm: 'Meanwhile the lower circle of the heavens looked a deep brassy red, from the partial reflection of the sunbeams on the thick clouds, which had now everywhere overspread it. The sun had long passed the meridian, and his rays were slanting upon the gathering billows, when those black and threatening ministers of the tempest rose rapidly towards the zenith.' (The Oriental Annual, London, 1834, p.6).
There are variants of the subject by Daniell, showing the storm at different stages, the large picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1833, with its black sky, now in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. The viewpoint is the same for the Daniells' 'South East View of Fort St. George', plate VII in volume II of the Daniells' Oriental Scenery.