The Cornfield

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Constable never found a buyer for ‘The Cornfield’ during his lifetime. However, shortly after his death, in 1837, the original painting was purchased for the National Gallery, London, for 300 guineas. Subscribers who supported the purchase included poet William Wordsworth, scientist Michael Faraday~and several artists.

A reviewer for the ‘Literary Gazette’ praised David Lucas’ mezzotint versions of Constable’s ‘The Lock’ (see GAC 1158) and ‘The Cornfield’ as ‘powerful and noble’, after they were published by Francis Graham Moon in 1834.

Born at East Bergholt in Suffolk, John Constable was the son of a miller. He claimed that the Suffolk countryside which surrounded him as a child ‘made him a painter’. In 1806, he visited the Lake District and in 1827 settled in Hampstead. Constable’s paintings ‘The Hay Wain’ and ‘View on the Stour’ were awarded the Gold Medal at the Paris Salon in 1824. The great success of these and other works exhibited in France had a significant effect on the development of the Barbizon School of landscape painters and works of the Romantic Movement. After Constable’s sudden death in 1837, a large collection of his work was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by his daughter.
David Lucas was born in Northamptonshire; the son of a farmer. In 1820 he began an engraving apprenticeship with S. W. Reynolds, moving into Reynolds’ home in Bayswater. By 1829 he was working with John Constable on a series of 22 plates, known as ‘English Landscape’ (published 1830-32), which was produced under Constable’s intense scrutiny. A further six plates were published by F. G. Moon in 1838, after the artist’s death. Lucas also engraved six larger prints after Constable and several prints after works by other artists, including R. Smirke, D. Roberts and T. Girtin. His last project was to rework ‘English Landscape’ for its republication in 1855. Alcoholism plagued his last decades and he died in the Fulham union workhouse, aged 79.

Places

Subjects

plough, farmer/farm labourer, shepherd, topography, landscape C19th, corn, tree, dog, donkey, sheep, river, boy, field, hedgerow, path, gate, church, tower

Materials & Techniques

mezzotint

Artist

John Constable (1776 - 1837)
David Lucas (1802 - 1881)

Title

The Cornfield

Date

1834

Medium

Mezzotint

Acquisition

Purchased from Christie's, 10 December 1954

Provenance

Collection of politician (Arthur) Ronald Nall Nall-Cain, 2nd Baron Brocket (1904-1967) of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, Bramshill Park in Hampshire, the Knoydart estate in Highland Scotland and the Carton House estate in Ireland; by whom sold through Christie's, London, on 10 December 1954 (Lot 144; with GAC 3097-3098, 3100-3102); from which sale purchased by Agnew’s Gallery, London, on behalf of the Ministry of Works

GAC number

3099