The painting measures by with the top half of the painting dominated by an intense yellow sunrise, symbolising the dawn of a new empire. The eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 created magnificent sunrises and sunsets which may have inspired Turner's paintings in this period. The painting was widely admired when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1815 together "Crossing the Brook", a pastoral landscape of the River Tamar in Devon also inspired by Claude Lorrain. However, Turner's work was criticised by Sir George Beaumont, who complained that it was "painted in false taste, not true to nature" and did not reach the heights of Claude Lorrain's works. Turner exhibited a companion piece, "The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire", at the summer exhibition in 1817.