This large canvas attempts an allegory with the sunrise the beginning in the symbolic sense and a beginning of a visit in the real sense; it is also the beginning of the end as Bligh was to discover. This type of sunrise, sunset – beginning, end, transition was immensely popular in the eighteenth century where night was known as ‘a blind man's holiday.’ The format is deliberately long and narrow to show the canoes coming from distant shores to welcome the strange visitors. Soon the natives will be swarming the decks of the Bounty. The simple style is in the manner of Cook's travelling artist Webber but without his inclination for painting the locals as well built Grecian warriors accompanied by voluptuous Rubenesque damsels.