Turner first visited north Wales in 1798, returning the following year. The Welsh mountain landscape had a profound impact upon him, inspiring a number of landscapes that reveal Turner’s interest in ideas of the ‘Sublime’. The sombre, glowing colours and powerful design of this large watercolour, which leads the eye from the foreground trees across the foothills towards Wales’s highest mountain peak, convey the overwhelming grandeur of the Snowdonia landscape. ‘Afterglow’ in the title refers to the gentle light of the fading sunset, while a dilute white wash suggests the pale gleam of the rising moon. The view is thought to be from Fachwen, to the north of the village of Llanberis.