Views of Onrust, off the coast at Batavia, are not very common. Batavia, now Jakarta, was the capital of the Dutch East Indies and needed an infrastructure such as shipyards, warehouses and workmen's quarters. Although no new ships were built there, a considerable amount of maintenance and repair work on them was carried out. The facilities for this were located on the island of Onrust, which lay just off the coast. Here they repaired all their shipping and kept a large quantity of stores. Work was under the charge of the 'equipagemeester', or master of the équipage. He was present when ships arrived and when they sailed. Before they sailed he called the muster-roll of that ship, after which he checked the cargo. As well as ship repairing, the island had warehouses storing Javanese copper, tin, brass, pepper and coffee.

The artist was initially a calligrapher in his native Germany before moving to Amsterdam. There he was inspired by the grisaille drawings of van de Velde the Elder. Later he was introduced to marine painting in oils in the studios of van Everingden and Dubbels. He was a contemporary of van de Velde the Younger and shared with him a concern for painting ships with accuracy and understanding.