Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd

  • Pencil
  • 4 ½ × 6 ¼ inches · 115 × 158 mm
  • Drawn 1808

Collections

  • John Constable;
  • Hugh Constable, (grandson of the painter), by descent;
  • Leggatt Bros., acquired from the above;
  • W. A Briscoe, Longstowe Hall, Cambridgeshire, acquired from the above, 1860-1934;
  • Richard G Briscoe, Longstowe Hall, Cambridgeshire 1893-1957;
  • Michael Bevan, Longstowe Hall, Cambridgeshire, by descent from the above, to 1992;
  • And by descent, to 2001;
  • Private collection, 2018

Exhibitions

  • London, Leggatt's Gallery (77 Cornhill, London), Pictures and water-colour drawings by John Constable, R.A.,1899.

Literature

  • Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London, 1996, cat. no. 08.21, repr. pl. 702 (verso: cat. no. 08.22, pl. 703).

These rapidly drawn life studies were made on a page from a sketchbook Constable seems to have been using in 1808. Constable first entered the Life Schools of the Royal Academy on 19 February 1800, he continued to attend regularly. 

A female nude standing, seen from the back (verso)

Constable’s friend and mentour, the landscape painter Joseph Farington recorded a visit from Constable noting that: ‘He attends the Life Academy every evening.’[1] Farington records an illustrative precis of Constable’s conversation regarding his time at the Life Academy: ‘Rigaud is the present Visotor at the Life Academy & is one of the best Visitors that the Academy affords & sets very good figures. Tresham who was the last Visitor, said that He never saw so many good drawings in the Academy at one time before. Mulready a man Twenty one or two years of age is reckoned to draw the best, but sets Himself high upon it as if He had done His business. He was a pupil of Varley & married His sister. Hilton, another student draw very well. He is abt. 25 or 6 years old.’

Constable seems to have made these two studies rapidly on a small sketchbook, perhaps trying out a pose before moving to a larger format. We know that he was also producing large-scale finished drawings in the Life Academy and, more unusually, painted studies at this date. The two drawings show a female model lying and standing. Female life models were a peculiarity of the British academy system. Constable suggests the figure with a series of subtle hatched lines, avoiding outline, a method which was particularly noted by contemporaries.

References

  1. Ed. Kathryn Cave, The Diary of Joseph Farington, New Haven and London, 1982, vol.viii, p.3142.