drawing
- Museum number
- 1910,0212.238
- Description
-
The Vale of Dedham; view from a hillside, a pond or river in the foreground, a group of trees and a gate at r, further hills beyond, a church visible at left
Watercolour over graphite
- Production date
- 1805
- Dimensions
-
Height: 192 millimetres
-
Width: 308 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Although Constable's grandest painting of Dedham Vale depicts the vista looking southwards down its length towards the sea (National Gallery of Scotland; R28.1), he studied this landscape from almost every possible angle. Here, he is looking westwards and south, across the valley, from a spot to the north of his home in East Bergholt. It is a view he presented in all its richness in the oil painting 'The Stour Valley and Dedham Village' of 1814-15, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (R15.1). The tower of Dedham church in this watercolour of ten years earlier is about the same distance away, and Constable seems to be standing at about the same degree of elevation, though somewhat further north than in the later view.
In 1805, Constable spent part of October and November at home in East Bergholt, and made several sketches looking across the valley, as here, both in chalk and watercolour. Good weather evidently prolonged the season, enabling him to work out of doors. One watercolour sketch, with patches of bright blue in the sky, is inscribed 'Novr 4. 1805 - Noon very / fine day' (R05.11).
I. Fleming-Williams, 'Constable landscape watercolours and drawings', 1976, pl.5.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1936 BM Canaletto to Constable, no no.
- Acquisition date
- 1910
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1910,0212.238