John Constable, R.A. 1776-1837

Agnew's, London

Support This small drawing on thin laid paper is attached at its edges to a card. The paper shows a mount stain on all sides except at the foot, and there is an oil stain towards the left, visible in the illustration. But otherwise it is in a good condition. Medium The watercolour medium has faded a little. Conservation note: This drawing would improve with cleaning to remove the mount stain and removal from the backing card. Note: This work was viewed outside studio conditions.
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The present lot appears to date from circa 1804-5. In 1804 Constable had acquired a studio in East Bergholt, Suffolk, directly opposite his family home. Greatly enamoured with the landscape which surrounded the village, Constable lived and worked there every summer until 1817, except for one brief sketching tour of the Lake District in 1806.

Although it would seem likely that Constable depicts the countryside around East Bergholt, the exact view here is difficult to identify. Two schools of thought have emerged; first, Dedham Vale has been suggested. There are certainly similarities between this landscape and that in Constable’s oil painting, Dedham Vale from Higham, thought to have been painted c. 1804 (see Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1976, pl. 04.9). Secondly, the landscape has also been read as an estuary. Peter Bower points out that the sharp definition of the ‘field’ easily reads as a shoreline, and [the present watercolour] may well relate to Constable’s oil painting, The Stour Estuary, dated 1804 (G Reynolds, lit. op cit, 1776, pl. 04.8). The present work sees Constable drawing on a laid paper, which has subsequently been trimmed. Unlikely to be part of a sketchbook, this early work would appear to be drawn on a single sheet.

We would like to thank Graham Reynolds, Peter Bower and Anne Lyles for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.