Vollmering's image of Sing Sing with its low horizon and overcast sky includes the industrial waterfront. The German-born artist, trained in Amsterdam, arrived in New York in 1847 to begin a landscape career in the United States. The view looks north from the hillside above Sing Sing Prison, the cluster of buildings at the river's edge; Croton Point and the Hudson Highlands are visible in the distance. The prison, long a stop on the Hudson's picturesque touring itinerary, had been established in 1824 to provide the nearby marble quarries with convict labor. Residents renamed their community Ossining in 1901.