The View of Dover was exhibited at the Strand Panorama from mid-1817 to mid-1819 and was the last exhibit in the Lesser Circle. It partly coincided with the view of Athens and the Surrounding Country, shown from mid-1818 to April 1819 and this advertising flyer most likely to date from 1818 when the two were first shown together.

Henry Aston Barker was the younger son of Robert Barker (1739-1806), the panorama painter. Aged 12, he was sent by his father to take outlines of Edinburgh from the city's Calton Hill for the world's first 360 degree exhibition panorama. In London, Barker panoramas were exhibited at an establishment in Castle Street, off Leicester Square. The first being a view of London from the roof of the Albion Mills in 1791, the drawings for which were made by the young Henry. Later on, from 1793, Barker panoramas moved to the first purpose-built panorama building in the world, in Leicester Square, London. Barker's other son Thomas also operated a rival operation called The Strand Panorama, the two circles of which were constructed in 1802-04. Henry, a talended artist who travelled abroad in search of panorama subjects, purchased it from his elder brother in 1817, but soon delegated the management to John Burford (fl 1812-1850), a former pupil of his father. It became known as Burford's Panorama and closed in 1831.