Frederik Sødring was a student of the landscape painter Jens Peter Møller (1783–1854), but in his early years also greatly influenced by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), who mentions Sødring several times in his diary, and Eckersberg's students - Sødring shared a studio with Christen Købke (1810–1848) in the early 1830s. Famous is Købke's portrait of Sødring from 1832 (The Hirschsprung Collection), from that particular period.

Sødring was also drawn early in his career to the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857) and his magnificent romantic landscapes and Sødring's first exhibited works at Charlottenborg in 1828 (no. 96 and 97) were two copies after Dahl.

The Cliffs of Møn became a recurring and significant motif for many of the Golden Age artists. The Cliffs represented at one and the same time the Danish nature that became so important for the Golden Age artists to present, but also with its magnificent mountainous otherness something completely different, which linked the motif to the romantic currents in Europe, and this undoubtedly appealed to Sødring's romantic vein in continuation of his fascination with Dahl.

Sødring painted on Møn and its surroundings in the years 1829–1831 and there are several works and studies from the Cliffs of Møn in the catalogue raisonné of the works of the artist from these years (Lilian Vestergaard in 'Kunstmuseets Årsskrift 1977–1980’, The National Gallery of Denmark, 1981, no. 15–22).

In his diary, Eckersberg on 8 September 1830 mentions, among other things, that (in Danish): “Sødring had returned, he showed his studies from this summer”. Sødring has very likely returned from his summer stay on Møn and has presented his studies after nature to the respected professor and the present study may very well have been one of these.

Here, Sødring has gone very close to the subject, and stands almost in the middle of it, instead of standing at the proper distance observing it, whereby the cliff towers above us, so that we are overwhelmed by the great nature, despite the fact that the painting itself is not very large.