The critic Georges Riviere admired this painting at the 1877 Impressionist exhibition, writing: It is strikingly majestic and extraordinarily calm. It seems that the scene takes place in [Cezanne's] memory while he turns the pages of his life. The composite image of fishermen and elegantly attired strollers along a sunlit shore derives from paintings of outdoor leisure by Manet and Monet from the 1860s, and harkens back to pastoral prototypes that Cezanne admired in the work of the Venetian painters Giorgione, Titian, and Veronese.