In late July or early August, 1869, Degas left Paris for the Norman coast between Dives-sur-Mer and Villers-sur-Mer. It is likely that he chose this resort area in order to stay in touch with the Morisots, some of whom were taking their summer holiday in nearby Beauzeval. Degas had previously befriended the Morisot family: he had been working on a portrait of their daughter Yves, and seemed interested romantically in her sisters Berthe and Edma, both of whom were painters.

During this excursion Degas drew a series of more than forty landscape pastels. While it was once widely held that the artist's pastel landscapes were for the most part recollected or imagined views without topographical basis, reflecting inner states of mind, Richard Kendall has demonstrated that many of the 1869 series were firmly based on actual locations which the artist had visited (see R. Kendall, Degas Landscapes, New York, 1994, Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, pp. 85-107).

Unlike Boudin and other artists who frequented the area, Degas generally avoided the popular resort towns and busy hotels and sought the solitude of the cliffs, the long stretches of beach and the broad vistas of the sea. The present work depicts houses on the western outskirts of Villers-sur-Mer, looking towards the northeast. The features of the houses are described in detail; at the same time, and with great economy of means, Degas depicts the broad, undulating landscape as it meets the sea. Gustave Caillebotte painted the same view in 1880 (see M. Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte, sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris, 1978, no. 149).