Watercolour, Jaques and the wounded stag: illustration to Shakespeare's 'As You Like It', by John Constable, ca.1834-6

A sketchily-executed watercolour and pen drawing of a clearing in a forest. There is a large, gnarled tree at centre, with the figure of Jaques (wearing a tall hat) at middle right and the wounded stag at left.

Given by Isabel Constable, daughter of the artist

One of a series of designs made by Constable for a wood-engraving in The Seven Ages of Shakespeare, published by John Van Voorst in 1840. According to John Martin, who requested the illustration, Constable made nearly twenty sketches for the 'melancholy Jaques'. This design was not used for the engraving; C. R. Leslie chose another one and drew it on the wood block for the ngraver.

Historical significance: The originating idea for the compositions by both Constable and Beaumont appears to have been W. Hodges's illustration of the scene, engraved by S. Middiman for Boydell's Shakespeare.

‘In 1836 Constable's two exhibits at the Royal Academy were the 'Cenotaph to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds' (now in the Tate Gallery, No. 1272) and the watercolour 'Stonehenge' (No. 395 [1629-1888]). He gave four lectures on 'The History of Landscape Painting' at the Royal Institution in May and June of this year and his last lecture, at Hampstead, on 25 July. Constable died on 31 March 1837. His almost completed painting 'Arundel Mill and Castle' (now in the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; see No. 379 [260-1888]) was exhibited posthumously at the Royal Academy.’

[G Reynolds, 1973, p. 233]


Constable seems to have turned his attention to the book illustration around 1834, but this was not his first attempt at the subject of Jaques and the wounded stag. He made a watercolour of the subject, after a painting by Sir George Beaumont (now in Tate Britain), c. 1828.

Constable was commissioned in 1834 to design a wood-engraving for The Seven Ages of Shakespeare, published by John Van Voorst. Although this sketch was not used for the engraving, the subject of Jaques, the melancholic philosopher of Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It clearly captured his interest. John Martin, who had commissioned the design, wrote in the introduction to the book: 'The interest which [Constable] took in the trifling affair required of him, is best evinced by the fact that he had made nearly twenty sketches for the "melancholy Jaques"'.

795-1888