Landscape by the sea

In the bottom left corner, written into the pale sand, there is a line of handwriting. It begins with the words to my good friends, names a couple, and is signed underneath. The picture was a present. It is small, about 33 by 52 centimetres, oil on a sheet of cardboard that was later mounted on board and canvas to hold it flat, the sort of support a painter carries down to the shore rather than sets up in a studio. The bay is put down in a few flat tones that deepen toward the middle, the beach is one broad sweep of pale ochre with low bushes scattered over it, and the mountains behind it are violet. The National Gallery dates the panel only within 1918 to 1920, and the record gives the bay no name.