JOHN CONSTABLE R.A. | Study for Dedham Lock and Mill

Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Bt. (1840–1929), Cape Town;

Private collection, England.

This spirited and atmospheric sketch dates from circa 1820, and is a preliminary study for one of Constable's most popular depictions of the area surrounding his home: Dedham Lock and Mill. Dedham Mill, like that at Flatford – further downstream on the River Stour – was operated by Constable's father, Golding Constable. Beyond the lock in the centre of the canvas is the tower of Dedham Church, viewed from the north.

The present composition relates most closely to Constable's signed paintings of the subject in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, dated 1820 (inv. no. FA 34), and in the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire.¹ There are numerous differences between the present canvas and the finished paintings, however. Most notable is the position of the boat, on the left, which advances much further into the present composition and includes a man at the prow; and the inclusion of the white horse, right, which in the paintings has been replaced by a chestnut horse set further back, close to another white horse, just visible behind some fence posts. Furthermore, the lean-to red roof of the mill over the water wheel here runs straight across, whereas in the two finished paintings it projects forward in its centre.

This canvas is one of a group of oil sketches the dimensions of which correspond exactly to the size of the finished canvases. It therefore differs considerably from the small oil sketch of the landscape on paper, also in the Victoria & Albert Museum (‪inv.no. ‪145-1888), which measures 18.1 x 14.8 cm.,² and a related drawing, today in the Huntington Library, San Marino (inv. no. 59.55.257),³ both of which omit a number of details that are found both in the present work and the two aforementioned finished paintings. It also deviates from two further, slightly earlier, autograph versions of the composition, datable to ‪around 1817–18, which exclude the boat on the left altogether as well: that on loan to The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and an unfinished painting at the Tate Gallery, London (inv. no. 2661).⁴ Interestingly the roof of the mill in these paintings does run straight, as in the present work.

The apparent purpose of a work such as this was to lay in the design over drawn outlines, in thinly-painted monochrome, with some more thickly-applied highlights and accents – used here to denote reflections on the surface of the water above and below the lock, for example. Constable used these full-scale sketches to map out a composition on a one-to-one scale. He came to employ this method particularly from the end of 1817 when he moved to London, from which point on he spent far less time in his native Suffolk, working up his paintings remotely in his London studio without direct reference to the motif (though of course reliant on his many sketches).

The textured, almost pink ground (most visible through the sky) is typical of Constable's unique, idiosyncratic way of priming paintings of this sort between 1820–27, enlivening the picture plane upon which he would then lay further strokes of paint.⁵ Others of Constable's sketches from this period which employ the same technique include: Child's Hill looking towards Harrow with a rainbow, sold in these Rooms, 4 December 2014, lot 232; and Brighton Beach, offered at Bonhams, London, 9 July 2014, lot 28.

We are grateful to Anne Lyles for endorsing the attribution to Constable on the basis of first-hand inspection of the painting.

A Note on Provenance 

As the Christie’s stencil on the stretcher of this canvas relates, this painting was formerly owned by Sir Joseph Robinson, the great diamond and gold mining magnate from South Africa who formed, between 1895 and 1900, a truly spectacular collection of Old Master and British paintings. In 1923 he decided to sell his collection at Christie’s, but upon seeing the works hanging in the galleries the night before the sale he felt compelled to keep hold of the paintings, and proceeded to apply prohibitively high reserves to the lots so that in the end he retained all but 12 of the 116 pictures offered at auction. The present work, though recorded as part of the collection that came to Christie’s, does not in fact appear in the 1923 sale catalogue, nor was it included in the exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1958, organised by Robinson’s daughter, Ida, Princess Labia.

¹ See G. Reynolds, The later paintings and drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London 1984, text vol., pp. 47–48, cat. nos 20.10 and 20.11, reproduced plates vol., plates 137 and 138, respectively.

² See G. Reynolds, Catalogue of the Constable Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1973, pp. 69, 76 and 77, cat. no. 113, reproduced.

³ See Reynolds 1984, text vol. p. 10, cat. no. 17.25, reproduced plates vol., plate 24.

⁴ See Reynolds 1984, text vol., pp. 48–49, cat. nos 20.12 and 20.13, reproduced plates vol., plates 139 and 140, respectively.

⁵ See S. Cove, 'The painting techniques of Constable's 'Six-Footers'', in Constable: The Great Landscapes, A. Lyles (ed.), exh. cat., London 2006, pp. 57–58.