Proveniens: Frederikke Treschow (1856–1946), gift 1901 med Lauritz Tuxen (1853–1946). Hun blev ligeledes i 1883 malt af P.S. Krøyer. Dette H. Chr. Christensens fortegnelse, 1923, nr. 289. I dag på Skagens Kunstmuseer (Inv.nr. 1244).

Månelys over havet var et tilbagevendende motiv i Krøyers kunst, og i udstillingskataloget ”The Blue Hour of Peder Severin Krøyer” beskrives hans forhold til motivet: ”There can be no doubt that the moon constituted a typical landscape study for Krøyer in his late years. At the end of the 1960s, his daughter, Vibeke Krøyer, took steps to get the first biography of Krøyer underway, written and published by the journalist and painter Ernst Mentze in 1969. She gave an interview on this occasion, recalling this anecdote from the late summer of 1906, when she was aged eleven: ‘We sometimes cycled along the southern beach when the sand was hard enough. Father felt drawn to the sea. During a stay in the mountains of Tyrol, I remember him being surprised that people could live this far away from the sea, which is salty like human tears. – The sea beneath the light of the moon probably presented the strongest urge. Father was moonstruck. He had to get out there–.[…]’” (Mette Harbo Lehmann i “The Blue Hour of Peder Severin Krøyer”, Musée Marmottan Monet, 2021, p. 210).

I nærværende maleri har Krøyer ikke medtaget selve lyskilden, månen, men fokuseret på den glimtende spejling i vandoverfladen, som er fremhævet yderligere med pastose penselstrøg.