Martin Johnson Heade created over one hundred paintings of salt marshes, using their flat expanses as a canvas to explore the interplay of weather and tides. In Quiet River at Dusk, Heade's use of perspective captures the vastness of the flat landscape, likely representing the Massachusetts coast. The regularly spaced haystack contrasts with the setting sun, symbolizing the inevitable passage of time and change.

While Americans revolutionized agriculture in the 1840s with the advent of effective harvesting machinery, Heade chose to depict the traditional gathering of salt hay for animal feed—a process resistant to mechanization and driven by the expansion of New England cities into rural pastures. The haystack in the foreground, perched on stilts, underscores the precarious nature of the region's rural economy.