Beschreibung:

John Constable RA (British, 1776-1837) Flatford Lock with Flatford footbridge and Bridge Cottage in the distance, circa 1805-1807 inscribed lower left "Flatford Mill" pencil on buff paper h:14 w:19 cm Provenance: Probably Leggatt Brothers, London, 1899: H A Sutch; Leggatt Brothers, 1952; by descent to the present owner (please refer to introduction by Anne Lyles for further information on provenance) This drawing was made by Constable from the tow path of the river Stour at Flatford very close to the lock. Flatford footbridge can be glimpsed in the distance to the left of the roof and gables of Bridge Cottage. Flatford Mill is just out of the composition to the right (the drawing is inscribed 'Flatford Mill' lower left, but this appears to have been added by another hand). Constable more often painted or drew Flatford Lock from the other side (usually from the 'island' on the river Stour at Flatford) or indeed, from the opposite direction. However, he did also paint a very similar view to this one in oils on paper, around 1811 (Royal Academy of Arts; see Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable 1996, Yale University Press, no.11.31, plate 915). Furthermore, another very similar view of the lock from this point was painted in 1814 by Constable's friend, John Dunthorne Senior (c.1770-1844), the local plumber and glazier in East Bergholt who was also an amateur artist (Colchester Museum and Art Gallery; repr and discussed in Constable: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings, Tate Gallery, 1976, exhibition catalogue by L.Parris, I.Fleming-Williams and C. Shields, no. 339). The trees on the left of the composition with a deep fork, identified as black poplars by naturalist and author, Richard Mabey (Flora Britannica, 1996, p.134), appear in many of Constable's paintings, for example in the famous picture in Tate Britain, Flatford Mill ( 'Scene on a Navigable River'),1817. John Constable RA at Cheffins Fine Art, 5th & 6th March 2014 Introduction by Anne Lyles: This remarkable group of drawings - seven by John Constable, and one attributed to his son, Lionel Constable - can be traced back to the stock of London fine art dealers Leggatt Brothers, who handled a large quantity of Constable's sketches in oil, watercolour and pencil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The vendor's father purchased this group of drawings from Leggatt Brothers in 1952, for £500. The drawings had been committed for sale by H.A. Sutch. Sutch was also a London art dealer who, together with Fredrick C. Williams had been in partnership with William Lawson Peacock with premises in Duke Street St James and Bond Street as well as in Princes Street, Edinburgh. Following Peacock's death in 1921, Sutch and Williams opened a gallery of their own, the United Arts Gallery, at 23a Bond street, where Sutch specialised in the Old Master side of the business ( American Arts News, vol 20, no.5, Nov 12, 1921). As well as these eight drawings, Sutch is also recorded as having owned two other Constables: one, a pencil drawing, Dedham: Rain coming on, now in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California (G.Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable 2 vols, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1996, no.14.75, plate 1220); the other, a watercolour, Bristol House and Terrace, Putney Heath, in a private collection (G. Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable 2 vols, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1984, no.18.18, plate 45. Sutch's name is mistakenly given under the provenance for this entry as H.S.Sutch, but is correctly referred to as H.A. Sutch in Reynolds's earlier Catalogue of the Constable collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2nd edition, 1973, HMSO, pp.119-20 where he discusses another version of Bristol House in that collection). The latter work, Bristol House and Terrace, Putney Heath (R.18.18)- although one of three versions of the subject