An early sketch by the master landscape painter John Constable (1776-1837), not previously recorded in literature on the artist, has emerged from a private family collection in North Yorkshire. Measuring just 12 by 15 inches, the landscape will be offered for sale with an estimate of £150,000-200,000 (plus buyer’s premium) in the British, European and Sporting Art Sale at Tennants Auctioneers on 15th March.
Dedham Vale looking towards Langham, executed circa 1809-14, is an impressive and vigorous early plein-air sketch of the countryside surrounding Constable’s childhood home of East Bergholt on the Suffolk/Essex border. Having completed his studies at the Royal Academy Schools in 1802, the young Constable abandoned the classical academic landscape painting of previous generations, letting ‘Nature herself’ guide his work. Returning to his Suffolk home, he began created plein-air sketches out amongst the fields and byways, a practice he continued until around 1829, and developed a colourful and highly expressive oil sketching style.
The present sketch is close in style to other known works executed circa 1809-10 but is notable for the more dramatic way in which he handles light and shade, depicting rays of sunlight bursting through cloud and sharply illuminating stretches of the Vale. Constable would use his quick on-the-spot sketches, often years later, when he was in his London studio planning new paintings for exhibition. Indeed, this sketch is believed to be the basis of Dedham Vale (c.1825), now in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Neue Pinakothek in Munich. The full-sized landscape has been extended into a more expansive view of Dedham Vale with figures and animals inserted, but it retains the dramatic sun bursting through the cloud.
Speaking of the painting, Jane Tennant, Director and Auctioneer at Tennants said: “Constable is such an icon of British art history, and we are delighted to be handling the sale of this lively and expressive landscape. Oil sketches, much like drawings, have an immediacy – a direct link to the mind and working practices of an artist. Executed when he was just starting out on his extraordinary career, he has managed to imbue the sketchily painted landscape with such vitality with his deft handling of dramatic light and shade.”
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