Commenting in the accompanying catalogue letterpress, Henry Peach Robinson writes of Dresser’s work and this plate:

Mr. A.R. Dresser’s pictures (301 to 306) are, perhaps, unorthodox, but one of them at least is most beautiful. Mr. Dresser does not always succeed in carrying out his intentions, but he occasionally surprises us with complete success. This he has attained in The Caskets (303)-which we reproduce-a simple sea subject, with a sunset sky, printed in a warm brown on rough paper. The effect is most poetic. If Mr. Dresser’s photography may be described in the language of cricket, his bowling is often loose, but he sometimes sends in a yorker, the rest of the over being not free from wides. Canal, Amsterdam (304), is quaint, if blotty, and includes a full-length of the harmless, necessary policeman.