Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky (1817 – 1900) is considered the most important seascape painter on a global scale. His painting was considered as important as the poetry of Alexander Pushkin and he was one of the most commercially successful artists of his time. It is said that he created over 6000 works of art, most of which were related to the seascape. Painting mainly from memory, because he believed that it was futile to observe the sky and the sea in order to capture them, as they are elements that are constantly changing and any moment is lost on the spot, he created magnificent images that deal with these two elements of nature. In this particular work from the P. C. Laskaridis collection, the painter tackles a favorite theme of artists who dealt with the liquid element in the 19th century, that of a ship in troubled waters. Under a darkened sky, there is a sea whose swollen waves crash onto the shore. Along the sea, a two-masted sailing ship is depicted. The painter is not descriptive in his depiction, but chooses to paint its silhouette in a dark tone, with unique colored spots the red of its waving flags. In this way, the feeling is given that the ship is ready to become one with the landscape that surrounds it. The artist has given particular importance to the way he depicted the sky and the sea, as this is where his interest lies, in the interaction of the two, both in terms of color and movement.

Both the intensity and the drama of this particular work are characteristics of the temperament of 19th-century Russian artists. Aivazovsky had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, while on a scholarship he traveled to Europe, learning about the artistic developments taking place there and adapting them to his own personal style. In the work in the Panagiotis C. Laskaridis collection, realism is set aside and freer and faster brushstrokes are adopted to better serve the subject depicted.