John Constable, R.A.

Private collection, US;

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Sotheby's, 8 April 1992, lot 65;

With John H. Brandler Galleries, Essex;

Private collection, UK.

G. Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London 1996, text vol., p. 14, no. 97.4, reproduced plates vol., pl. 41.

This early oil sketch by Constable was rediscovered shortly before its appearance on the market in 1992. It dates to one of the very first years of Constable's career – 1797 – and is one of two versions of the scene. The prime version descended in the Constable family collection until around 1920, and is distinguished from the present work by the red (rather than buff) coat of the figure collecting reeds, lower right, and the number of birds in the sky.¹ That work was specifically mentioned by Sir Charles Holmes at the 1899 Leggatt's exhibition as being the only one of three early Constable landscapes on display to show 'any trace of feeling, skill, or invention'.

Constable also made an etching of The Harvest Field in the same year, suggesting that he felt a particular fondness for this composition, though he struggled initially with the techniques required for print-making. In a letter to John Smith, 16 January 1797, Constable refers to the difficulties of judging the strength of the acid required for the technique: 'what I doubt I am deficient in is the biting'.²

Constable learnt about engravings during the summer of 1796 while he was in London, where he spent time with John Thomas Smith, who was working on a book of etchings called 'Remarks on Rural Scenery' (published 1797), and his father, Nathaniel Smith, who ran a print shop off St Martin's Lane, where Constable was able to study the full range of engravings by Dutch and Flemish landscape painters. The Harvest Field clearly shows the influence of the Old Masters, such as Jacob van Ruisdael, in the framing motif of the tree, left, as well as British artists, such as Gainsborough, particularly in the handling of the foliage.

¹ Sold London, Sotheby's, 12 June 2003, lot 11 (for £100,800).

² John Constable's Correspondence II: Early Friends and Maria Bicknell (Mrs. Constable), E.B. Beckett (ed.), vol. VI, Ipswich 1964, pp. 8–9.