Vicat Cole fulfilled his greatest professional ambition through his election to full membership of the Royal Academy in June 1880. A trio of paintings of Thames scenery in that year's summer exhibition had been well received and Cole spent the rest of the summer at Wargrave making preparatory sketches and studies for the present work, which appeared at the Academy the following year. Late in 1879, Cole's dealer William Agnew had commissioned from the artist a linked sequence of paintings of the Thames "from its source to the sea." Cole's election to the rank of Academician encouraged him to consider this series as a crowning achievement; it accounts for all but a handful of paintings he exhibited until his death in 1893, and, according to his biographer Robert Chignell he considered it "a work of national importance". National pride provides a key to the increased popularity of depictions of the Thames during the 1880s and 1890s: Cole's Thames series culminated in triumphant views of The Pool of London and Westminster. Additionally, widespread concern about the despoilation of the countryside by industry and surburbia, as recorded in Our River (1881) by George Dunlop Leslie, R.A., and anxiety about international challenges to Britain, ensured the popularity of reassuring images of the home counties.

George Vicat Cole's diary for 1880-81 records work on a number of subjects on the river at Wargrave. This included studies of trees and plants, among them 'loosestrife and docks', 'water-lillies', 'arrow-heads', 'reeds and osiers' and other details such as the ferry boat. Many of these details were incorporated into the finished Wargrave. Cole was not always punctilious in representing topography as it presented itself to him, preferring to restore the Thames Valley to its picturesque pre-industrial condition. He judiciously removed, for example, a Great Western Railway viaduct in one of his views of Windsor Castle. Wargrave seems however to record a particular view, noted in the artist's diary (no.615) as "looking up from below the boathouse."

Chignell records that the artist and his family stayed in the village of Wargrave for the summer of 1880, enduring the frustrations of wet weather. The first fruit of the sketches made at this time was a small painting begun on 9 October 1880 same subject seen from a viewpoint a few yards further upstream. The artist's diary records the subject as Looking from the Wharf Wargrave up the river, completed on 25 November 1880. While considerable differences exist, particularly in the grouping of trees to the left of the painting, the composition is in essence the same. It was characteristic of Vicat Cole to clarify his thinking for the composition of a large canvas through working on a smaller scale. The addition of a white horse being punted across the river in the Academy painting may capture an incident observed by Cole; it also recalls a notable art-historical precedent in John Constable's The White Horse (New York, Frick Collection) where a white cart horse is seen in a ferry to the left of the composition. Cole and his biographer preferred to acknowledge Turner as an influence, but in Wargrave and especially in the Academy painting of 1884, Iffley Mill (Burnley, Towneley Hall Art Gallery) Cole's debt to Constable is apparent. According to Chignell, Wargrave was the last work the artist completed largely on the spot, rather than in his Kensington studio. With the compositional aid of the completed smaller painting, the present work must have been painted from on board 'The Blanche', Cole's small steam-boat, which he used as a locomotive studio, and which was a familiar and much commented-upon sight on the Thames during the 1880s. Although Cole had decided upon the subject and size of canvas as early as 6th August 1880, the painting was not completed, as was the artist's habit, until shortly before the exhibition submission date in March 1881. The painting exemplifies Cole's exhibition pictures of the 1880s when he was at the height of his powers. Its confident and boldly stated composition, documentation of local incident and heightened concern for atmospheric effect ensured its popularity with the Victorian audience.

Chignell's description of the Academy painting vividly captures the enthusiasm with which these images were received: 'Trees, river and sky form the greater part of the subject, but the essence of the picture is its sweet, radient light. Vicat Cole was always especially happy in representing all these in their perfection. His trees are living trees, as perfect in design, proportion and form as Greek statues; these qualities, together with depth of light and shade and truth of tone and colour render them unequalled in landscape art. His power in depicting the surface of water and reflections in all their subtle delicacy has been frequently noticed and is well illustrated in this picture; as are also the fine drawing and perspective which, combined with luminous splendour give to his skies their singular beauty of effect.'