Fitz Hugh Lane is renowned for his dramatic paintings of landscapes and ship portraits. Although it is unknown precisely when Lane might have visited San Juan, scholarship indicates that it was likely around 1850. While the painting does not portray dramatic atmospherics like many of Lane’s work during the same period, it does appear to be painted on the spot.

It is also known that Lane painted several scenes for Sidney Mason, a merchant in New York and Baltimore in 1849. There is no reason why he could not also have sailed aboard a trading ship from Gloucester to Puerto Rico.