John Constable, RA (East Bergholt 1776-1837 London)
Sketch for ‘View on the Stour, Near Dedham’
Circa 1821-22. Oil on canvas. 51 x 73 in (129.4 x 185.3 cm).
Estimate: on request.
Christie’s to auction a six-foot sketch by John Constable The full-scale six-foot sketch for ‘View on the Stour Near Dedham’ by John Constable will be offered alongside other masterpieces in Christie’s 250th anniversary Defining British Art sale on 30 June 2016.]]>
May 26, 2016, source: Christie’s
A work of genius by John Constable, R.A. (1776-1837), the full-scale six-foot ‘sketch’ for View on the Stour near Dedham, circa 1821-22, will be offered alongside other masterpieces by Reynolds, Leighton, Lowry, Spencer, Bacon and Freud in Christie’s 250th anniversary Defining British Art sale in London on 30 June (Estimate on Request: in the region of £12-16 million). The work, the last great six-footer sketch in private hands, clearly illustrates why Constable was considered the father of British Modernism and why the French painters, particularly the Impressionists, revered Constable as an instinctive painter of nature and the elements.
Constable’s use of full-scale sketches would appear to be unique in Western art. This example, for the fourth work in the series, “View on the Stour Near Dedham” (San Marino, the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1822, is the last of the full-scale sketches to remain in private hands.
The six large-scale canvases of the Stour valley that Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825 define his artistic maturity and secured his professional reputation. Including several of his most celebrated works, notably The White Horse (1819; New York, Frick Collection), and The Hay Wain (1821; London, National Gallery), they represent a distillation of Constable’s profound emotional and artistic response to the scenery of his native Suffolk. The group shows a radical shift from his earlier work, both in the sheer ambition of their scale and in the unprecedented working method, with the introduction of a full-size sketch for each composition to realise his artistic vision.
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John Constable’s ‘The Lock’ sold for £22,4 million at Christie’s (news, 2012)
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