Drawing of an oak tree in a hayfield, by John Constable

A pencil drawing of an oak tree with a broad, leafy crown, growing beside a hayfield. A cluster of haystacks appears in the distance.

Given by Isabel Constable, daughter of the artist

This sketch has proven difficult to date; the emphasis on the long shadows cast by the stooks of hay recalls the oil sketch (Reynolds cat. no. 115) of 1812, but there are no other clues as to the year it was drawn.

In 1819 Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy 'A scene on the River Stour' ('The White Horse'), bought by John Fisher, and now in the Frick Collection, New York (see the sketch-book No. 132, pp. 66 and 70). His second child Maria Louisa (Minna) was born on 19 July. He took a house at Hampstead for the first time at the end of the summer. He was elected A.R.A. on 1 November.

[G Reynolds, 1973, p. 121]

The contemporary poems of Goldsmith, Thomson, and Cowper emphasised the idea that the countryside represented the social and political state of a nation, with scenes of cultivation signifying order and harmony. These ideas had a decisive influence on Constable's depiction of the East Anglian countryside.

'Portraits' of individual trees were a recurring subject in Constable's oeuvre. Often tranquil, sometimes dramatic, they often carried implications of stability and timelessness and reflected Constable's love of nature, which was both sensual and spiritual. In this sketch, Constable juxtaposed the broad crown of an old oak with a hayfield bathed in the late afternoon sun. This idyllic scene reflects the idea, widespread at the time, that a nation's countryside represented its social and political state; scenes of cultivation and husbandry indicated a state of order and harmony.

357-1888