Physical description
This is the third and last version of the subject, and represents Constable's final thoughts about the subtly orchestrated composition. It is one of the artist's most beautiful and justifiably famous pictures. Constable's father owned Dedham Mill, and he worked there as a boy, on and around the river Stour. The sun is just breaking through the rain clouds after a shower, the grass and foliage glistening brightly in the light. Such effects were Constable's forte, and the principal aim of his life and work. But together with his observation and recording of the 'real' atmosphere of landscape, there co-existed the fervent expression of his emotions about the countryside of his earliest years which resulted in his predominant place in the history of Romantic art. He himself wrote: 'Painting is for me another word for feeling, and I associate my "careless boyhood" with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; these scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful'.
Place of Origin
Dedham Mill (painted)
Date
1820 (painted)
Artist/maker
John Constable, born 1776 - died 1837 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
oil on canvas
Marks and inscriptions
'John Constable. ARA. pinxt. 1820'
Dimensions
Height: 53.7 cm estimate, Width: 76.2 cm estimate, Height: 88 cm frame, Width: 111.5 cm frame
Object history note
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Historical context note
In 1820 Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy 'Stratford Mill' (now in the collection of Sir Reginald Macdonald-Buchanan) and 'A View of Harwich Lighthouse' (see No. 142 [302-1888] above).
He stayed with Fisher at Salisbury in July and August, settled his wife and children at Hampstead by 1 September, and paid a brief visit to Malvern Hall.
[G Reynolds, 1973, p. 127]
Descriptive line
Oil painting entitled 'Dedham Lock and Mill' by John Constable. Great Britain, 1820.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Parris, Leslie and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable London : The Tate Gallery, 1991. ISBN 1854370707 / 1854370715. 544 p. : ill. (some col.).
Exhibition catalogue
Catalogue of the Constable Collection, Graham Reynolds, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1973, pp. 127, 128
The following is an extract from the text of the entry:
Sheepshanks Gift.
The canvas has been relined at an unknown date.
Dedham Mill belonged to Golding Constable, and the artist worked in it as a boy. No. 113 [ 145-1888] is an oil sketch from nature for the painting, and a related pencil sketch is mentioned under the entry on that sketch. The following versions by or attributed to Constable are recorded:
i A sketch on panel, sold as Lot 46 at Messrs. Sotheby’s, 15 April 1953. 11 x 14 ½ ins. This came from the collection of G. Hilditch, and is said to be the work sold as Lot 39 of the Executors’ sale, 16 May 1838, ‘Sketch of a Mill on the Stour’, bought by Hilditch £7 17s. 6d.
ii Tate Gallery No. 2661. 21 x 30 ¼ ins. This is a full-scale oil sketch with no boat in the left foreground, and no tow-horse in the right foreground (L. ed. S., Pl. 61a)
iii A picture in the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S.A. 21 ½ x 30 ½ ins. Signed below on right John Constable. London Formerly in the collection of the Spedding family, members of which were friends of Constable’s. A letter of 19 January 1841 from C.R. Leslie to Maria Constable refers to the acquisition of it by Miss Spedding, and states that this version tto was painted in 1820. This is similar to No. 184 [F.A. 34], but the rope from the boat is attachedto the bollard, and not to the harness of the tow-horse.
(Burlington Magazine, Vol. XCVII, 1955, p. 54, fig. 25)
iv A picture from the T. Horrocks Miller and T. Pitt Miller collections sold as Lot 17 at Messrs. Christie’s, 26 April 1946. 28 x 35 ins. This picture may have been acquired by Mr. Thomas Miller, who was forming his collection of British paintings around the year 1850 (W. P. Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences, I, 1887, p. 261). For Holmes’s discussion of this version, see below.
V A picture in a private collection. Inscribed on the back J. Constable F. London 1827. In this version the mill has gothic windows. It is reproduced (fig. 26) and discussed in relation to Nos. 113 and 184, the pencil sketch in the Gilbert Davis collection, and ii and iii above, by Beckett in the Burlington Magazine, Vol. XCVII, 1955, pp. 52-55.
Constable exhibited ‘A Mill’ at the British Institution in 1819 (No. 78, framed measurement 39 x 47 ins.). Holmes, p. 244, identifies this exhibit either with No. 184 [F.A. 34] or iv above. The identification of one of the versions of ‘Dedham Mill’ with the picture exhibited in 1819 is plausible on grounds of style, title and the date of the sketches, and is not inconsistent with the framed measurements given in the British Institution catalogue. But it could not be No. 184 [F.A. 34], since that is dated the following year.
Holmes also identifies either No. 184 [F.A. 34] or iv with Lot 80 in the Executors’ sale, 16 May 1838, ‘Dedham Mill and Church’, bought by Brown for £45 3s. No certain conclusion can be reached in the absence of Mr. Sheepshanks’ records, but he was actively buying works by Constable at this sale, and Frown may have been acting for him. As the note on iv shows, Mr. Thomas Miller belonged to a slightly later generation of collectors.
For a repetition of the central section of the composition see the sepia drawing No. 410 [249-1888].
Evans, M., with N. Costaras and C. Richardson, John Constable. Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: V&A, 2011, p. 21, fig. 15.
Exhibition History
Constable (Tate 13/06/1991-15/09/1991)
Materials
Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Landscape; Boats; Dedham; Canal, Lock
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
