Stacking Hay thumbnail 1
Not currently on display at the V&A

Stacking Hay

Oil Painting
19th century (painted)
Artist/Maker

Oil painting showing workers stacking hay in front of farm buildings in the mid distance.


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleStacking Hay (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Oil on millboard
Brief description
Oil painting, 'Stacking Hay', British School, 19th century
Physical description
Oil painting showing workers stacking hay in front of farm buildings in the mid distance.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 4.5in
  • Estimate width: 6.75in
Dimensions taken from Summary catalogue of British Paintings, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973
Style
Credit line
Bequeathed by Rev., Chauncey Hare Townshend
Object history
Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, 1868
Historical context
When this painting came in to the museum as part of the Townsend bequest it was believed to be by English Landscape artist John Constable (1776-1837). The painting was recorded as being by John Constable in the 1870 Inventory of Art Objects at the South Kensington Museum 1868-1870, London, 1870, (p.101). The work has since been re-attributed to Anonymous British School (see note on museum file and Reynolds p.6). In 1946 the painting was identified by Mr. H. B. Maxwell of Bristol City Art Gallery as being by the same hand as a scene of a cottage bought by Bristol City art Gallery, which was attributed to Constable but clearly not by his hand.

This painting is either a forgery, or by an artist who was working in the style of Constable in the mid-nineteenth century. Fakes and forgeries of Constable's works first started emerging in the 1840s and appeared in growing numbers in response to increased sales of the artist's works at the end of the nineteenth century. C. J. Holmes warned about the growing number of fakes and forgeries in his 1902 book Constable and his Influence on Landscape Painting (see pages 237-238). In 1888, Constable's last surviving child, Isabel, had given a significant collection of works to the then South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). Following her death, her descendants sold many of works from the collection that she had retained. Inscriptions were often added to these works by Isabel's family to give provenance to works believed to be by Constable prior to their sale, both following her death and in subsequent sales in the 1890s. In their book The Discovery of Constable (1984) Ian Fleming-Williams and Leslie Parris have discussed how a number of artists' works, including the Suffolk born artist George Frost (1745-1821), Frederick Waters Watts (1800-1870) and John Constable's youngest son, Lionel (1828-1887), were mistaken for genuine Constables and collected as such during the nineteenth century.

The loose application of paint and use of white and red dabs to highlight the figures suggest that, whoever the artist was, he was trying to emulate the style of Constable. The presence of the other work by the same hand, also originally attributed to Constable, in the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, and the early date of attribution of 1417-1869 to Constable, would imply that this artist was deliberately creating forgeries. More recently some of these paintings have been reattributed, notably to John Constable's son Lionel Constable.

References

Inventory of Art Objects at the South Kensington Museum 1868-1870, London, 1870, p.101

Reynolds, G., Catatlogue of the Constable Collection in teh Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1960, p. 6.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Inventory of Art Objects at the South Kensington Museum 1868-1870, London, 1870, p.101
  • Reynolds, G., Catatlogue of the Constable Collection in teh Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1960, p. 6.
Collection
Accession number
1417-1869

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Record createdApril 10, 2007
Record URL
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