This painting， one of two views of Mortlake Terrace painted by Turner， is a view from the house， looking directly west into the luminous glow of the setting sun. Turner established the quiet mood of the late-afternoon scene with two ivy-covered elm trees， whose soft， feathery leaves and curving limbs frame the painting. Long shadows create elegant patterns on the lawn that almost obscure the human element in the scene. Scattered about are a gardener’s ladder， a hoop， a doll on a red chair， and an open portfolio of pictures that have been just left behind by figures watching the Lord Mayor’s ceremonial barge.

透纳画过两幅摩特雷克平台的风景画，此画是其中之一，描绘了从房子向外看到的景观——画家面向正西，落日余晖的景色尽收眼底。透纳用两棵爬满常春藤的榆树营造出傍晚的宁静气氛，榆树松软的羽状叶和弯曲的枝桠形成了天然的画框。长长的树影在草坪上投射出雅致的图案，让画中人物显得有些模糊。画面上散布着一架园艺梯、一个滚圈、一只放在红椅上的玩偶，还有一个打开的画夹散落出几张画，那是观看市长大人仪仗船的人留下的。

The painting was done about eight years after Turner’s first stay in Venice， where his perception of nature and the physical world was profoundly changed by the city’s unique light and atmosphere. Light immobilizes the river and gives its surface a dreamlike shimmer. The stable mass of the classical gazebo， the delicate linear clarity of its architectural details， and the carefully depicted windows in the buildings on the left bank of the river coexist in Turner’s vision with the heavy impasto of the sun’s forceful rays that spill over the top of the embankment wall and dissolve the stone’s very substance.

这幅画是透纳第一次造访威尼斯八年后完成的。