More left Edinburgh and came to London in 1771, to further his career as a landscape artist. His first exhibits at the Society of Artists included three views of Falls of Clyde, showing the famous waterfulls up and downstream from New Lanark. James Holloway, in his monograph on More in the 'Scottich Masters' series, suggests that Claude Vernet's Landscape with a Waterfall, painted in 1746, which was easily acceible at Dalkeith Palace, was More's inspiration for the series. The paintings were received with such favourable attention that his reputation was quickly established.

The present picture is a recently discovered fourth version of the Falls. The three other versions are in a private American collection, with the figures wearing modern dress; in the National Gallery of Scotland, formerly in the collections of Sir Joshua Reynolds and later the Rt Hon. Ramsay MacDonald, who bequeathed it to the Gallery, where the figures are wearing antique dress; and a third, formerly in the Leveson-Gower collection. Reynolds was a great admirer of More, whom he considered the best 'painter of air' since Claude.