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Hove Beach, with Fishing Boats

Oil
ca. 1824 (made)
Artist/Maker
Constable, John (RA) (artist)
Place of origin
Great Britain (made)

Oil on paper laid on canvas depicting Hove Beach, with fishing boats

Object details

Category
Paintings
Object type
Oil
TitleHove Beach, with Fishing Boats (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Oil on paper laid on canvas
Oil Paint
Paper
Canvas
Oil Painting
Brief description
Oil sketch of Hove Beach by Constable, ca. 1824.
Physical description
Oil on paper laid on canvas depicting Hove Beach, with fishing boats
Dimensions
  • Height: 315mm
  • Approx. width: 49.2cm
  • Frame height: 51.3cm
  • Frame width: 71.4cm
  • Frame depth: 4cm
  • Frame width: 714mm
  • Frame depth: 40mm
  • Width: 499mm
Measurements taken from previous conservation report.
Style
British School
Gallery label
(2014)
Constable made many small sketches of the sea and coast at Brighton in the years 1824 to 1828. In a letter to his great friend Archdeacon John Fisher, he laments the fact that the 'magnificence of the sea, and its (to use your own expression) everlasting voice' is drowned by the noise of tourists in central Brighton. Constable preferred to study it from the quieter stretch of beach in Hove, where the only onlookers were people like himself appreciative of the 'wildness and... sentiment of melancholy' it evoked.
From 'The Power of the Sea', The Royal West of England Academy, Bristol 5 April- 6 July 2014.
Credit line
Given by Isabel Constable
Object history
Given by Isabel Constable, 1888
Historical context
In 1824 Constable's sole exhibit at the Royal Academy was 'A Boat passing a Lock' ('The Lock') (now in the collection of Mr. S. Morrison). 'The Hay Wain', the 'View on the Stour near Dedham' and a 'View of Hampstead Heath' were exhibited at the Salon in Paris in this year. He took his wife and family to Brighton for the first time in May, and himself spent some time in London and some with them in Brighton, returning before them at the end of August.
Production
The scene has been identified by Mr. G. C. Beresford as a view from Hove
169 Beach, with Worthing on the extreme left, Highdown Hill nearer the centre, and Cissbury on the right. Holmes, p. 247, dates c.1824; the subject and style support this dating.(Catalogue of the Constable Collection, Graham Reynolds, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1973, cat. no. 270, p. 169-170)
Subjects depicted
Beaches
Boats
Place depicted
Hove
Bibliographic references
  • Parris, Leslie and Fleming-Williams, Ian. Constable London : The Tate Gallery, 1991 no.149
  • Gray, Anne and John Gage, Constable: impressions of land, sea and sky, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2006
  • Catalogue of the Constable Collection, Graham Reynolds, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1973, cat. no. 270
  • pp. 66-7 Christiana Payne and Janette Kerr, The Power of the Sea: Making Waves in British Art 1790 - 2014 ISBN: 978-1908326577
  • p. 107 Shân Lancaster, ed. Constable and Brighton: something out of nothing. London : Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2017. ISBN: 9781785510694.
Other number
270 - Reynolds catalogue no.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
129-1888

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Record createdJune 13, 2006
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O125137/hove-beach-with-fishing-boats-oil-constable-john-ra/
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