James Campbell Noble was born in Edinburgh in 1846. He first studied art under William McTaggart at the Royal Scottish Academy, and his early paintings consisted mostly of portraits, idyllic plein air scenes of country life and rustic genre scenes, such as country cottage interiors. He was elected an associate member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1879, becoming a full member in 1892. He later became a teacher at the Academy and one of his pupils was the well-known Scottish artist, Robert Gemmell Hutchinson. Over the course of his career as an artist, he gradually broadened the subject matter of his paintings to include landscapes, and marine paintings, in particular.