John Constable R.A. (Suffolk 1776-1837 Hampstead)


View on the Orwell near Ipswich inscribed and dated 'Ipswich/5 Aug 1815' (lower right)pencil on laid paper14.3 x 20.6cm (5 5/8 x 8 1/8in).with a second landscape sketch verso
|ProvenanceSeago Collection, UK, by whom offeredSale, Christie's, London, 8 June 1976, lot 172Collection of William Jenkins Esq, and thence by descent to the present ownerLiteratureG. Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London, p.207, nos. 15.14, 15.15, ill., pl. 1225Constable made another study on the same day: Shipping near Ipswich, now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv. no. 308-1888), was part of the large bequest made to the museum by Minna Constable, the artist's daughter. Both drawings were sketched while Constable was returning from visiting the Rev. F.H. Barnwell at Brightwell where he painted the small oil painting of Brightwell Church and Village now in the collection of Tate Britain (inv. no. 3121).When the present drawing was offered at Christie's in 1976 it came from the property of a Mr Seago. Edward Seago (1910-1974) was a Norwich-born landscape artist whose paintings of East Anglian waterways, characterized by low horizons and billowing skies, show a clear debt to Constable and it seems very likely that he was the previous owner of this atmospheric pencil sketch.