NOTES

1. This is also a rare example of Constable's painting an unrelated image on top of one of his earlier landscapes. I know of only two other examples. In the oil sketch The Stour Valley with Stratford St. Mary Church from the Fields South of East Bergholt (private collection, Great Britain; Leslie Parris, Ian Fleming Williams, and Conal Shields, Constable: Paintings, Watercolours & Drawings, exh. cat., Tate Gallery [London, 1976], no. 91), the horizontal landscape of c. 1809 is painted on top of a vertical image of gables and trees, at right angles to it, traces of which are visible in the sky. In the oil sketch The Thames Valley from Hampstead Heath (Yale Center for British Art; GR 25.35), the Hampstead landscape of c.1825 is unrelated to the image of Salisbury Cathedral from the Close, much of which can be seen through the present paint surface in the sky (the covered image is nearly identical, including the end of the bishop's palace at the left, to another oil sketch, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, dated August 1820 [R.196; GR 20.48 ] ). Another Salisbury oil sketch, the superb Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, GR 20.50), is a horizontal painting on top of a vertical one of the same cathedral painted at right-angles to it, but, unlike the examples just given, these two images are of the same subject. The x-radiograph of this painting is reproduced in Graham Reynolds, John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds, Masterpieces in the National Gallery of Canada No. 10 (Ottawa, 1977), fig. 10.

2. The term "six-foot sketch" properly refers only to six extant canvases by Constable. But there are six additional sketches, one larger, the others smaller, which I consider part of the series of large, full-size sketches for exhibition pictures, and which I have listed in the text. In addition, there are a few smaller full-size sketches not considered here.

3. There are three possible references in Constable's correspondence to his large, full-size sketches. These would refer to the full-size sketches for A View on the Stour near Dedham, at the Royal Holloway College, Egham (GR 21.2), to Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London (GR 31.2), and to Stoke-by-Nayland, at the Art Institute of Chicago (GR 36.19).

View on the Stour near Dedham may be referred to in a letter from Constable to Fisher, quoted by Leslie. The letter clearly refers to Constable's main exhibition picture that year, A View on the Stour near Dedham, now at the Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino (GR 22.1): "I have sent my picture to the Academy. . . . The composition is almost totally changed from what you saw. I have taken the sail, and added another barge in the middle of the picture, with a principal figure , altered the group of trees, and made the bridge entire" (Charles R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, composed chiefly of His Letters, ed. with intro. and notes by Jonathan Mayne, London, 1951; reprinted Ithaca, New York, 1980; 89-90). According to Leslie, the letter was written 13 April 1822, but Beckett suggests that the portion quoted was written 1 April and enclosed with the 13 April letter (John Constable's Correspondence, ed. with intro. and notes by R. B. Beckett, 6 vols, Ipswich, England, 1962-68, 6: 89]). The changes Constable described agree with those now visible between the full-size sketch and the finished version, and indicate either that Fisher had seen the full-size sketch or that Constable first transferred the sketch to the second canvas before making the changes. This full-size sketch was certainly seen by at least one person outside the family during Constable's life, since it was used by Lucas for the mezzotint of the subject when the finished version was unavailable in France (see Andrew Shirley, The Published Mezzotints by David Lucas after John Constable, R.A. , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930, no.19, pl.XIX; see also Correspondence 4: 333).

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows may be the "sketch of Salisbury" referred to by Constable in a letter to Lucas written toward the end of October 1830 (Correspondence 4: 336).

Stoke-by-Nayland seems almost certainly to be described, rather fully, in a letter from Constable to William Purton, which Leslie dates 6 February 1836 (Leslie-Mayne, 250), but which Beckett has shown must have been written in February or July 1835 (Correspondence 5: 144).

4. Their full extant correspondence is published in Correspondence , 6: 1968, and in John Constable: Further Documents and Correspondence , edited with notes by Leslie Parris, Conal Shields, and Ian Fleming-Williams (Ipswich and London, 1975, 116-121.

5. Leslie 1951. In his extensive biography, Leslie did not mention any of Constable's large, full-size sketches. This is especially surprising because Leslie housed the two most famous six-foot sketches, those for The Hay Wain and The Leaping Horse, following the 1838 executor's sale, at which these two works were bought in for the Constable family. See Reynolds 1973 (R. 209); also see Charles Leslie, Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A., ed. with notes by Robert C. Leslie (London, 1896), xiii.

6. Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of British Painters (London, 1946, 1981), 370; lst ed. 1866.

7. A Catalogue of the Valuable Finished Works, Studies and Sketches, of John Constable, Esq. R.A. deceased , auction cat., Foster and Sons (London, 15-16 May 1838). This was the first public display, albeit for a short time, of Constable's large, full-size sketches. The prices nearly establish that eleven of the large, full-size sketches were shown then, and it seems likely that two or three others were also shown.

8. London, 1855, 267.

9. Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters , together with the Works of Deceased Masters of the British School , exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1872), 14. The picture was also mentioned in The Times (7 January 1872) and The Art-Journal (1872), n.s., 11: 45-46. On 5 January, following a visit to this exhibition, James Smetham wrote a three page celebration of the painting, which contains no information but does establish that he mistakenly thought he was looking at the finished version (Letters of James Smetham , ed. Sarah Smetham and William Davies, London, 1902, 289-291).

10. Harry V. Barnett, "The 'White Horse:' A Note on Constable," The Magazine of Art (June 1883), n.s., part 32, 334-335 and full page repr. p. 190. Barnett incorrectly identified the picture as the one purchased by Fisher and exhibited at "Lisle," but the full-page engraving leaves no doubt that the work "exhibited last year at Mr. White's Galleries, in King Street, St. James's, and still in his possession," is the Washington full-size sketch.

11. These include two letters in the curatorial files and a typed notation in a unique copy of a Widener catalogue, described in note 12 below, in the library of the National Gallery of Art. The first letter is a previously unpublished, handwritten letter on stationery headed "Sefton Place, Warmingcamp., Arundel.", and signed "GSConstable" (George Sefton Constable). George Sefton, an amateur artist, was the son of George Constable of Arundel, who himself was an amateur artist and, though no relation, John Constable's close friend the last four years of his life. The reliability of George Constable of Arundel as an informant on the work of John Constable is open to serious question (see Correspondence , 5: 1967, pp.38-39), but there is no specific reason to doubt any of the information in the letter here quoted. The letter is addressed to the London gallery owner E.F.White Esq. Presumably, White passed the letter on with the picture when sold.

The second letter, also handwritten, is on stationery headed "The French Gallery, Wallis & Son, 120 Pall Mall, London.," dated 1 January 1909, and addressed to "P. A. B. Widener Esq, Philadelphia, U.S.A.," does not add any information not obtainable more reliably from other sources.

12. The typed notation referred to at the beginning of note 11 provides the 1893 date of purchase from Wallis & Son. This appears at the end of the entry for The White Horse sketch on page 72 of a typed manuscript, bound together with what may be printed proof pages, for the earliest catalogue of the Widener paintings. The title page of this unique volume reads: Catalogue of Paintings Forming the Private Collection of P. A. B. Widener, Ashbourne - Near Philadelphia. Part I. Modern Paintings. MDCCCLXXXV-MCM. When published in 1900, the White Horse entry appears as page 122 of "Part II, Early English and Ancient Paintings.," but all other information on the title page is the same. The date stamped on the front cover of this unique volume is "FEB. lst. 1908," and some of the typed information clearly postdates 1900. The special value of this volume is the information not included in any published Widener catalogue. This includes the date and source of purchase for each picture and a symbol probably indicating price (for the White Horse sketch the symbol is "IYMIR"). In addition, there are entries and lists of works that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. For Constable, there are two such lists of paintings, all presumably disposed of before the collection came to the National Gallery of Art. The first lists ten sketches with titles, measurements, and various collector's and dealer's numbers and symbols. At the bottom, "Sedelmeyer, 1906" presumably identifies the dealer and date of purchase by Widener. A second sheet lists six sketches, with titles and measurements but no symbols or numbers. The sketches were presumably purchased from "Fischhof, 1906."

13. The conservation files at the National Gallery of Art record the following:

1930	Restore corners, clean and varnish

1944	X-rayed and developed negative

1944	Tested to determine procedure for cleaning. Found pigment had been applied mainly in a varnish medium.

1948	Removed old lining and relined with aqueous medium.

1949	Restored numerous worn areas in sky at right. Restored numerous separation cracks in foliage at left center, in houses, water and trees. Filled old right-angle tear in center foreground and retouched same. Refinished surface.

The 1980 examination by Kay Silberfeld is worth quoting in full.

14. Examination was carried out in the painting conservation department of the National Gallery of Art by Sarah Fisher and Charlotte Hale, who also prepared the eight-page examination report.

15. Complete x-radiographs had been taken in 1944, but the Dedham Vale image does not seem to have been observed and, at least in their present state, the x-radiographs are so dark that only a few scattered traces of the Dedham Vale image can be seen even after one knows where to look.

16. The Victoria and Albert study was cleaned in 1964, exposing the previously invisible path running across the meadow toward the right, and revealing the subtle tonal gradations and sensitivity of the paint surface. Two color plates, one of the entire study, the other of the central section, are reproduced in Hoozee 1979, pls. I and II. The study is dated c. 1800-1805 by Reynolds and c. 1805 by Parris, Fleming-Williams, and Shields (Tate 1976, no. 55), by Hoozee (Hoozee, 1979, H. 31), and by Rosenthal (Michael Rosenthal, Constable, The Painter and His Landscape [London, 1983], fig.228), but I have never been able to see why it should be dated so early. We lack comparative oils for the years immediately following the c.1801-1804 Higham Village and Dedham Vale from Above Higham (Tate 1976, no. 43), a comparable panorama similar in size ( 18 1/8 x 24 in. versus 19 5/8 x 23 3/4 in. for the Victoria and Albert study); but can the V&A study much precede View at Epsom and Malvern Hall from the Lake, both of 1809 at the Tate (P. 4 and P. 5)? The gentle tonality of the sky seems no earlier than 1808, and practically identical to that in Dedham Vale from the Road to East Bergholt , c. 1811-1813, at the Victoria and Albert Museum (R. 109). The handling of the landscape seems close in parts to the more fully developed 1814 Dedham Vale from the Fields South of East Bergholt at Boston (Tate 1976, no. 133). It would be extremely helpful to know the correct date of this study, but the extensive retouching makes secure dating difficult. C. 1808-09 seems a reasonable provisional dating.

17. This was first noted by Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams when examining the 1944 x-radiographs on a visit to the National Gallery of Art in May 1983 (personal correspondence). See their discussion of this issue in their review of Reynolds' Later Paintings and Drawings , in the Burlington Magazine , 127 (March 1985), note 19.2 on p. 167, figs. 46-49.

18. At my request, four paint samples were taken: (1) in the white triangle at the lower-left corner of the gable end of the house, (2) in the extreme lower right of the barge, (3) where the diagonal tree trunk in the lower-left overlaps the meadow, and (4) in the low hills in the background toward the left. "Two sets of photomicrographs were made: 35 mm color slides and 4 x 5 inch color transparencies. Also, sketches of the cross-sections were made because the dark upper layers of glaze and varnish were not apparent on the photomicrographs" ("Analytical Report; Constable 605/S2, BM /sl;" 9 August 1984). An even more detailed analysis and diagrams of these four paint samples was carried out in December 1984 and a six-page report prepared by Eugena Ordonez, painting conservator / analytical technician at the National Gallery of Art. This report confirms the surprising evidence that "no consistent layer was noted in the four cross-sections which might be attributable to a separatory layer between the sketches." In addition, the detailed description of paint layers in the four samples will make possible important comparisons with related paintings by Constable, should these become available. This six page report is now the single most detailed paint analysis for any Constable painting. ("Analytical Report #2; 605 Constable / AR / S2;" 8 January 1985).

19. Anna Southall described the ground of Flatford Mill from Old Bridge at the Tate as "a white ground. Analysis shows that the ground contains both lead white and black chalk. Over this there is a thin wash of raw umber;" see Completing the Picture: Materials and Techniques of Twenty-Six Paintings at the Tate Gallery (London, 1982), 34. This is a large exhibition painting, nearly contemporary with The White Horse. The only other paint sample from a Constable painting of which I am aware was taken from the small, 1810 oil sketch, East Bergholt Common; View to the Rectory from Golding Constable's House, in the Johnson Collection, no. 856, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In February - March 1984, Jean F. Rosston, then Mellon Fellow in conservation at the museum, examined this sketch for me, and in her report and a letter wrote that "four ground layers are noted: uppermost, is a white ground; second , is a gray ground; third, is a pink ground; and fourth, at the bottom in contact with the fabric is a pink ground," with a "warm-golden-brown imprimatura" of oil paint over the uppermost white ground layer."

20. Completing 1982, 37.

21. The largest number of x-radiographs of Constable paintings have been made in the technology department of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and are stored there and in the conservation department of the Tate Gallery. The staffs of these two institutions, especially Caroline Villers at the Courtauld and Anna Southall at the Tate, assisted me greatly in studying these records.

The handling of impasto in Constable's large oil sketches, which is dramatized by x-radiography, is highly distinctive and often breathtakingly expressive. Because x-radiography emphasizes the contrast between impasto and thinly painted areas, and because Constable increasingly allowed the brown ground to show through and used white and yellow for his impasto, there develops in some of the very late sketches a striking correspondence between the sketch itself and an x-radiograph of it. The sketch of about 1834, On the Stour, A Farmhouse Near the Water's Edge, at the Phillips Collection, Washington (GR 34.76), is a brilliant example. See also the discussion of Constable's late painting, A Wooded Bank, with an Open Book and Distant View of Water , in my "Discoveries in the Exhibition," in John Constable, R. A. , exh. cat., Salander-O'Reilly Galleries (New York, 1988), 21-23 and note 75.

22. Four catalogues of the paintings collection were published of the P. A. B. Widener Collection in 1900 and 1915, and of the Joseph Widener Collection in 1923 and 1931. In addition, a small one-volume, abbreviated handbook, also privately printed, was published in 1931. All illustrate and describe the White Horse sketch, with information nearly identical in all.

23. "Constable in America," Connoisseur, 137 (May 1956), 287.

24. Tate 1976, in entry for no. 165.

25. Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable, Landscape Watercolours & Drawings (London, 1976, 86).

26. Hoozee 1979 (H.618): "Opere dubbie." "Considerato lo studio full scale [ . . . ] `e molto probabilmente un'imitazione."

27. John Walker, John Constable (New York, 1978), fig. 32 and caption. Walker was also the first to point out that the Washington picture is the same type of full-size sketch as the famous examples at the Victoria and Albert Museum (letter of 13 March 1944, in the curatorial files, from Walker to Franklin M. Biebel, the Frick Collection).

28. Rosenthal 1983, 117. Rosenthal's book includes a number of superb, full-page color details of Constable's six-foot landscapes, both finished paintings and large, full-size sketches.

29. Reynolds, 1984 (GR 19.2).

30. Charles R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq. R.A., Composed Chiefly of His Letters (London, 1843; 2d ed. 1845), 122. Leslie 1951, 279.

31. It is sometimes said that Constable never represented Suffolk cattle with horns, but his 1800 watercolor drawing, The Valley of the Stour, Looking towards East Bergholt , at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Reynolds, 1960 [R. 16C]), in which Constable was undoubtedly attempting to be accurate, clearly shows cows with horns at the edge of the Stour just two miles upstream from the site of The White Horse.

32. Notable alterations are the omission of the housing from the waterwheel on Dedham Mill, 1820 (GR 20.10), compressing the length of Willy Lott's house, 1821 (GR 21.1), removing the crossbar from Flatford Lock, 1824 (GR 24.1), inserting Dedham Church, 1825 (GR 25.1), enlarging it, 1828 (GR 28.1), and aggrandizing the size and scale of Willy Lott's house, 1835 (GR 35.1).

33. GR.19.2, p. 30, GR.19.1, p. 28.

34. For assistance in attempting to trace similar sketches by other artists, I thank David Rosand, John Steer, Martha Wolff, Jack Martin, Julius Held, Bob Herbert, and Adrienne Atkinson.

35. For a study of fifteenth- to nineteenth-century cartoons, see Roseline Bacou, Cartons d'artistes au XV^e au XIX^e siecle, exh. cat. Musée national du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins (Paris, 1974).

36. In his definitive study , Julius Held catalogues four hundred fifty-six oil sketches by Rubens, but only six are larger than 4 feet, the longest 4 feet 9 1/2 inches (The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, A Critical Catalogue, 2 vols. [ Princeton, 1980] ). See the "Introduction" with its important discussion of the function and historical context of oil sketches.

37. On occasion Van Dyck painted two large versions of the same composition. In two cases, the earlier, sketchier version is nearly the same size as the later, more finished version. The status of these is uncertain. If they were intended as preliminary oil sketches rather than as less detailed, earlier versions, they would be remarkably close predecessors for Constable's large, full-size sketches, indeed the only such predecessors of which I am aware. The two Van Dyck "sketches" in question both represent St. Sebastian Bound for Martyrdom , but are variant compositions. The first, at the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, is both large (height 189 cm., 74 1/2 in.) and just four inches shorter than the more finished painting of the same composition at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. The other, at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (height 226 cm., 89 in. ), is just thirteen inches shorter than the more finished painting of the same composition, also at the Alte Pinakothek (see John Rupert Martin, "Van Dyck's Early Paintings of St. Sebastian ," in Art the Ape of Nature ; Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson , ed. Moshe Barasch and Lucy Friedman [New York, 1981], pp.393-400; also John Rupert Martin and Gail Feigenbaum, Van Dyck as Religious Artist , exh. cat. The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1979, no.30 ).

Two other preliminary versions by Van Dyck, though significantly shorter than the corresponding later paintings, also seem relatively close in function to Constable's large, full-size sketches. These are the Betrayal of Christ in Minneapolis (height 142 cm., 56 in.) and a third, the earliest variant composition of St. Sebastian Bound for Martyrdom, at the Louvre (height 144 cm., 56 3/4 in.). For these two potential "sketches," see Wolfgang Stechow, "Anthony Van Dyck's 'Betrayal of Christ' ", Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, XLIX (1960), 4-17; Martin and Feigenbaum, Van Dyck , 1979, no.24; and Martin, "Van Dyck's Early," 1981. As with Constable's full-size sketch for The White Horse , these four Van Dycks were done for major paintings near the beginning of the artist's career, when unusual caution and application might be expected.

38. These are among Turner's largest canvases, a number well over six feet long. See the "unexhibited works" catalogued in Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols. (New Haven and London, 2d ed. 1984).

39. Barbara Ehrlich White catalogues thirty-two extant copies by Delacroix and their Rubens prototypes. One of these is 6 feet 5 inches long (no.14, Miracles of St. Benedict, at the Royal Museum, Brussels), after a Rubens 7 feet 9 l/2 inches. Otherwise, only one other copy is over three feet. See "Delacroix's Painted Copies after Rubens," The Art Bulletin, XLIX (March 1967), no.1, 37-51.

40. Michael Wilson has proposed Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, at the Courtauld Institute Galleries, as a preparatory sketch for the famous 1863 exhibition picture (Michael Wilson, Manet at Work , exh. cat. National Gallery, London, 1983 , 22-25 ). Although less than half the length of the finished painting (length 116 cm. , 45 5/8 in., as against 264.5 cm., 104 1/8 in.), this would be a large oil sketch with approximately the same function as Constable's large, full-size paintings, and as such would be a unique object within Manet's oeuvre. However, Juliet Wilson Bareau has shown that a composite x-radiograph of the Louvre painting reveals major alterations, thereby establishing that the Courtauld sketch must follow rather than precede ("Manet: Peinture-Gravure," lecture at Manet symposium, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22 Oct. 1983).

41. See Albert Boime, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1971), 37-41, etc., and John Minor Wisdom, French Nineteenth Century Oil Sketches: David to Degas , exh. cat. Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1978), 2-4. The general lack of attention to the essential role of size in oil sketches is reflected in the fact that nowhere in Boime's landmark publication can one find the size of any of the works reproduced.

42. See, for example, Rousseau's View of the Chain of Mont-Blanc during a Storm (Copenhagen: Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek), The Destruction of Trees in the Ile de Croissy (The Hague: Mesdag Museum) and Descent of the Cattle (Amiens).

43. For possible exceptions, see footnote 3.

44. With the exception of the eccentric case of The Opening of Waterloo Bridge , where the sketch is 24.1 cm. (9 1/2 in.) larger than the painting, the largest difference in size between sketch and painting is 4.8 cm. (1 7/8 in.).

45. No previous publication even mentions the possibility that the Chicago Stoke-by-Nayland might be a sketch. In his catalogue of Constable's complete paintings and oil sketches, Robert Hoozee describes the Chicago canvas as "a late unfinished picture, probably destined to be exhibited at the Royal Academy" (Hoozee 1979 [H. 564]). Parris writes that "this canvas may have been left unfinished by Constable and later worked on by another hand" (Parris, 1981, on p. 64). Reynolds describes it as "the late and not fully completed Stoke-by-Nayland" (Graham Reynolds, Constable's England, exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983, 23). Malcolm Cormack even writes that "There is only one large-scale finished work of his last years [the Chicago Stoke-by-Nayland ], in which he has allowed this freedom of handling full expression" (Malcolm Cormack, Constable, Cambridge, 1986, 225). Of course every sketch that Constable painted was to some extent an end in itself, and the ways in which Constable's late work does and does not anticipate twentieth century expressionism is a complex question of great fascination, but the misinterpretation of a private sketch as a finished painting leads us away from an understanding of Constable's unique historical position. Comparison of the Chicago picture with Constable's other large sketches and with his exhibited landscapes of the thirties seems to me evidence enough that the Chicago picture was never intended to be an exhibitable painting. Additional reasons for considering it a sketch are included in a long article, which I have recently prepared for publication.

46. Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of Painters of the English School , 2 vols., London, 1866, II, 394-96.

47. Kenneth Clark, Landscape Painting , New York, 1950, 77; republished as Landscape into Art (London, 1976), 150.

48. The standard account is chapter 4, "The Large Canal Scenes," in Graham Reynolds' Constable, the Natural Painter (London, 1965). See also the relevant portions of Rosenthal 1983, especially the rich comparison of the full-size sketch and finished version of A View on the Stour near Dedham , 138-41.

49. Reynolds, 1984.

50. Tate 1976, under nos. 165 and 262.

51. Hoozee 1979, under no. 269, and nos. 618, 662, 474, 460, 564, 473.

52. Parris 1981, on p. 143 and p. 64.

53. Reynolds 1984 (GR 20.2). Some additional information can be supplied. In 1965 I studied this picture, then on loan from Mrs. Alice Schoenfeld Seligson, at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco. According to a letter of 30 June 1961, in the museum files, from Walter Heil, director, to Mrs. Seligson, the painting had recently been cleaned by Henry Rusk, conservator at the museum. At that time I agreed verbally with reservations that had been expressed by Kenneth Clark in a letter to Walter Heil. Previous to the 1983 sale at Sotheby's, I was able to examine the painting again, this time off the wall and under excellent daylight. It seemed to me then, as it still does, a brilliant authentic sketch, possibly with later reworking, but this also in Constable's hand. The recent cleaning by John Brealey was slight and happily has not changed its appearance appreciably. Even the later signature may be in Constable's hand. If so, this would suggest that Constable may have touched up the Stratford Mill sketch sometime following his election as R.A. The variety of opinions among Constable scholars concerning a six-foot oil sketch in excellent condition, from the center of Constable's career, dramatizes the originality of Constable's art, especially the experimental character of these magnificent large, full-size oil sketches. No painting is ever beyond dispute, but the evidence here seems to me pervasive and convincing.

54. Basil Taylor, Constable: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolours (London, 1973), 38.

55. Kenneth Clark, "Hogarth, Constable and Turner," in Masterpieces of English Painting , exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, 1946, 14.

56. See Reynolds, 1984 (GR 32.2).

57. Reynolds 1984, (GR 20.13) and Parris 1981 (P. 17). Parris wrote: "It is difficult to say whether No.17 precedes or follows the l8l9 picture, and no less difficult to say why it is unfinished. No.17 may be Constable's first attempt at a full-size version of the composition, perhaps abandoned when he felt that the closely observed middle-distance threatened the overall unity of the picture and that the necessary adjustments could not be made on the same canvas."

Two other Tate Gallery publications include additional technical descriptions of this picture: Paint and Painting , (London 1982), 94-96; also Completing , 1982, 34-38. This latter contains one of the few published descriptions of Constable's technical working method, a lucid five pages by Anna Southall.

58. Six drawings and four oil sketches of this scene previous to the Washington sketch are known to me. Eight of these (including figs. 5 and 13-16) are listed by Parris in his entry for one of them (Parris, 1981 [P.8]). In addition, two previously unpublished drawings are at Exeter and Liverpool (The River Stour with Stratford Bridge from the Foot of the Coombs , c.1801-1802, 15.6 x 23.0 [6 1/8 x 9 1/8), Royal Albert Museum, Exeter, 99/1978, nos. 2 recto; and Dedham Vale with Stratford Bridge from the Coombs , c. 1812-1816, 9.5 x 12.8 (3 3/4 x 5 1/8), Hornby Library, Liverpool, B62-18 verso). Holmes reproduced a drawing of this view that would be, as he proposed, Constable's earliest representation of the scene, but which I attribute to George Frost (Charles Holmes, Constable, Gainsborough and Lucas: Brief Notes on Some Early Drawings by John Constable [privately printed, 1921], no. 13, repr.) The relative formlessness of the entire sheet and the outlined depiction of buildings and river are uncharacteristic of Constable. The lettering "Dedham" at the bottom left seems to be by the same hand as that on no.1 in Holmes's book, but does not agree with any authentic Constable inscription with which I am familiar.

In addition to these views of Dedham Vale from the Coombs, there are several of the same scene from what would here be behind the artist's back, at the top of the Coombs along the ridge near Langham Church. There are also a few of this view from what here would be to the artist's right, on Gun Hill or along Gun Hill Road. With so many images of Dedham Vale, it is helpful in descriptive titles to distinguish the various motifs, by identifying the viewpoint; for instance Dedham Vale from the Coombs , Dedham Vale from Langham, Dedham Vale from the Lane to Flatford , etc. Even with this degree of specificity, objects with the same title are not normally done from exactly the same spot. In Constable's views of East Bergholt Common, Flatford Mill, etc., each image seems to be a new discovery, done from a slightly different viewpoint and encompassing a slightly different field of vision. However, Constable's eleven images of Dedham Vale from the Coombs here mentioned are unusually similar in composition, probably because of the limiting format of enclosing trees. Even so, there is in each a sense of fresh eyes brought to a familiar scene.

59. In many works by Constable, there are fold marks on the canvas or additional strips of canvas stitched to the sides, top, or bottom, indicating that changes in format were made after the painting had been begun. There are no such indications on the Washington canvas.

60. Parris 1981, under P.8, fig.2, note 5. This picture has always been accepted as an authentic sketch by Constable. However, the relative formlessness of the handling has bothered me whenever I have studied it first-hand. These doubts were put to rest by Leslie Parris, who kindly informed me of his recent observation that the number "138F" (partly covered by a label), stenciled on the back of the stretcher, is the sale stencil for lots 183-196 at Christie's, 17 February 1877, and that the only one of these lots that has an appropriate title not otherwise accounted for is this painting. Since these lots were sold by Lionel Constable as sketches by his father, the painting is almost certainly authentic. Parris also pointed out that the subsequent lot in the sale was the other unfinished sketch of this view, the Victoria and Albert Museum oil study (fig. ll in this article).

61. Correspondence 1964, 2: 156.

62. Correspondence 1964, 2: 159.

63. Rosenthal 1983, 93-95.

64. The Edinburgh painting and the unfinished Washington painting are vertical and horizontal versions of the same scene. A parallel but more complicated situation can be seen in the various versions of The Lock. In that case, the full-size oil sketch (Philadelphia Museum of Art; GR 24.2) was itself changed from a horizontal to a vertical format when Constable cut off a portion of the canvas at the right and added a strip at the top. Based on this, a finished vertical painting was produced (Walter Morrison Collection, Sudeley Castle; GR 24.l), comparable to the Edinburgh Dedham Vale. But with The Lock, Constable also produced, two years later, a large horizontal exhibition picture (Royal Academy of Arts; GR 26.15).

For a thorough description of the buildings and topographical features in the Edinburgh painting, see Attfield Brooks' detailed account in Alastair Smart and Attfield Brooks, Constable and His Country [London, 1976], 119-124, and 139-140). In this Edinburgh painting, the gypsy in the foreground has sometimes been considered an artificial addition, indicating Constable's relaxed concern for topographical accuracy in his later years; but it is likely that this figure was fully appropriate, just as the distant topographical details in this painting are astonishingly specific. Gypsies were frequently recorded in East Anglia during Constable's life, and at the spot on the hillside where a gypsy is shown in the Edinburgh painting there is a small depression running down to the left as shown. On the 25 inch Ordnance Survey Map of 1903, a well is indicated at this spot, a natural camping site for an occasional gypsy.

65. In describing The White Horse, Rosenthal wrote: "At 51 3/4 x 74 1/8 inches it may have been larger than anything [Constable] had previously tried." Surprisingly, Constable had painted two larger pictures than this, but not landscapes; one, the portrait of The Barker Children, 204.5 x 130.8 cm. (80 1/2 x 51 1/2 in.), Christie's, 24 April 1987 (48); the other the little-known 1807 Copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds' Portrait of Mrs. Anna Tollemache, Countess of Dysart, as Miranda from the Tempest , oil on canvas. 235.5 x 145 cm. (92 3/4 x 57 in.) sight. Collection of the Hon. Michael Tollemache. The latter is Constable's largest finished painting, larger than his largest finished landscape, The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (134.6 x 219.7 cm., 53 x 86 1/2 in. GR 32.l). Constable's sketch for this landscape was even larger, more than full size, and is therefore Constable's largest known canvas ( 153.6 x 243.8 cm., 60 1/2 x 96 in., GR 32.2).

66. For the favorable reception of the finished Frick painting, see GR 19.l.

67. R. 132, p. 66.

68. Reynolds 1984 (GR 19.3 and 19.4).

69. Redgrave 1981, 370.