Cottage at Brantham, with a view of Mistley Hall thumbnail 1
Cottage at Brantham, with a view of Mistley Hall thumbnail 2
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Cottage at Brantham, with a view of Mistley Hall

Drawing
1796 (drawn)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

A pen and ink drawing, lightly sketched, of a cottage on the right, trees on the left and a view of Mistley Hall in the background.


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleCottage at Brantham, with a view of Mistley Hall (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Drawing
Brief description
John Constable, Cottage at Brantham, with a view of Mistley Hall, 1796, Reynolds cat. no. 3. On same sheet as 358:B, D, I-1888.
Physical description
A pen and ink drawing, lightly sketched, of a cottage on the right, trees on the left and a view of Mistley Hall in the background.
Dimensions
  • Height: 7 1/8in
  • Width: 11 3/4in
  • Height: 180mm
  • Width: 299mm
Marks and inscriptions
'A Fisherman's Cottage in Brantham Suffolk with a view of Mistly Hall lately the Seat of Lord Viscount Galway' (Inscribed at top in ink by the artist)
Object history
This is one of the earliest dated drawings by Constable of which the whereabouts are now known.
Historical context
John Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, on 11 June 1776, the second son of Golding Constable, a well-to-do mill-owner, and Ann Watts. His fondness for painting, without any marked precocity, had already declared itself by the time he was 16 or 17: and he was encouraged in this taste by his friendship with John Dunthorne, a plumber and glazier of East Bergholt, who was an amateur painter.

Excluding copies after engravings, 358J-1888 is among the earliest dated drawings by Constable of which the whereabouts are now known. In 1796, Constable, not yet firmly committed to an artistic career, met the writer J. T. 'Antiquity' Smith, who was compiling Remarks on Rural Scenery; With twenty etchings of Cottages, from Nature; and some observations and precepts relative to the pictoresque (published June 1797). Constable wrote to Smith in October 1796, offering to send him several drawings of cottages, perhaps from this sketchbook, which he might find suitable for his purposes. Although Smith apparently responded positively, none of Constable's drawings appears in the published edition.

In 1797 Constable was following his father's business in Suffolk. In 1799 he went to London to pursue his career in the arts, and on Farington's recommendation he was admitted as a probationer to the Academy Schools in March of that year.

Lt.-Col. C. A. Brooks considers that this drawing represents a cottage at Marsh Farm, Brantham, which was demolished in 1958 (G. Reynolds, Catalogue of the Constable Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973, p.34)
Places depicted
Bibliographic reference
G. Reynolds, Catalogue of the Constable Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973, pp.34-36
Collection
Accession number
358J-1888

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Record createdApril 27, 2009
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