Isabel Constable (1822-1888), the artist's daughter, sold by her estate, Christie's, 28th May 1891;
Ernest Alfred Colquhoun (1852-1930) and thence by descent until sold, Sotheby's, 18th March 1981, lot 66;
Newhouse Gallery;
Solander-O'Reilly Galleries from whom purchased by the present owner

Grosvenor Gallery, Second Series of a century of British Art, 1889, probably no. 303;
Solander-O'Reilly Galleries, John Constable, R.A., 1988, pp. 16-17, illus. on cover

Robert Hoozee, L'Opera Completa di Constable, 1979, no. 133;
Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1996, Text Volume, no. 10.49, Plates Volume, plate 875

This vigorous plein air sketch is dated to c. 1810 by both Graham Reynolds and Charles Rhyne. It depicts a view from close to East Bergholt House, Constable's birthplace, which was of particular significance to the artist not only because of his happy memories of his childhood in Suffolk, but also because it was sketched during the early years of his long courtship with Maria Bicknell.

East Bergholt House, situated in the centre of the village, was built by Golding Constable in about 1773. It was a red brick, three storey building with a pedimented entrance below a Venetian window. On one side was a laundry and counting house and there was stabling to the rear. From the rear windows, Constable had a view of the family's flower and vegetable gardens (the subject of two important pictures from 1815 now in the Ipswich Museum and Art Gallery) and of the thirty acres of fertile land which his father farmed. Also visible from the rear of the house was the rectory, where Constable first met Maria Bicknell, his future wife. The Rector of East Bergholt was Maria's grandfather, Dr. Durand Rhudde, whose implacable opposition to Constable as a suitor for his granddaughter was to delay their wedding until 1816. The view had therefore a particular poignancy as it was in those fields that their courtship first took place. As Constable wrote to Maria in June 1812: "From the window where I am writing, I see all those sweet fields where we have passed so many happy hours together. It is with a melancholy pleasure that I revisit those scenes that once saw us so happy - yet it is gratifying to me to think that the scenes of my boyish days should have witnessed by far the most affecting event of my life" (Beckett, Constable's Correspondence, Vol. II, 1964, p. 78).

Charles Rhyne has in fact established that this particular sketch was not made from East Bergholt House  or from its immediate vicinity, but from several hundred yards behind the house on the sloping ground which leads towards the Ryber, the stream running through East Bergholt Common. He notes a drawing from an 1812 sketchbook (Harold Day Collection) where the artist is looking back towards East Bergholt House and where we can see the valley from which this sketch was made.

It is one of a group of sketches from the Constable's house which focused on the rectory with its distinctive group of trees, the first being in 1808 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). Another view towards the rectory taken from a window of the house was sketched on Sunday 20th September 1810 (John C. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art) and a similar view from a few years later is in the collection of Mr and Mrs David Thomson.

The year 1810 marked a radical change in the character of Constable's oil sketches. They became more vigorous and colourful, with often spectacular contrasts of light, and the rapid sketching resulted often in a picture which rather than just describing a scene, suggested its atmosphere. Charles Rhyne has written in detail about this picture and its relation to other work of that period: "This exuberant sketch shares the juicy pigmentation, bold brushwork, and extensive use of black and yellow highlights seen most comparably in two sketches dated 1810. As with others in this astonishingly original group, this sketch would not have been possible previous to Constable's dramatic 1810 innovations...".