Table Bay, c. 1730.

Table Bay, painted around 1730, depicts the harbor at the Cape of Good Hope, the crucial resupply point for ships on the East India route. This early work shows Scott engaging with the tradition of Dutch maritime painting that depicted colonial ports and trade routes, the Cape being a subject painted by numerous Dutch artists since the seventeenth century. Samuel Scott occupied the commanding position in British marine and topographical painting for three decades, filling the gap left by the death of the van de Veldes and not finally superseded until the emergence of Nicholas Pocock and J.M.W. Turner.

The wide harbor view accommodates a panoramic sweep of Table Mountain behind the bay, with ships at anchor rendered in Scott's precise manner. The exotic setting is conveyed primarily through the distinctive mountain profile rather than through tropical atmospheric effects.