An inscription on the back of this watercolor reads “Mark Rothko 125 Oceana.” The first entry on a list of Rothko’s watercolors in the papers of the dealer Betty Parsons is a work titled Oceana and priced at $125 [Betty Parsons Gallery records and personal papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC]. This watercolor is possibly a work inventoried by Parsons that did not sell and was, according to a Parsons Gallery receipt, returned to Rothko along with twelve canvases and two other watercolors.