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

Portrait of one of the artist's sons, traditionally identified as John Charles Constable (1817-1841)

Details
John Constable, R.A. (East Bergholt, Suffolk 1776-1837 Hampstead)
Portrait of one of the artist's sons, traditionally identified as John Charles Constable (1817-1841)
oil on canvas, laid down on board
15 1/8 x 12 in. (38.4 x 30.5 cm.)

Provenance
by descent to Hugh G. Constable, the artist's grandson.
with Legagatt, London, by 1899.
R.B. Beckett.
Edmund Peel.
Norton Simon Museum of Art; Sotheby's, London, 27 June 1973, lot 24 (£2,000).
Anonymous sale [The Property of a Lady]; Sotheby's, London, 8 April 1992, lot 59 (£19,800 to the present owner).
Literature
John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett, 1967, V, pl. 6.
R. Hoozee, Opera Completa di John Constable, 1979, no. 553.
G. Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1984, text, p. 282, no. 35.39; plates vol. pl. 1047.
Exhibited
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, John Constable, 1956, no. 67.

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Lot Essay

This sitter for this intimate portrait, dated by Graham Reynolds to 1835 (loc. cit.), has traditionally been identified as the artist's eldest son, John Charles. However, as Reynolds observes, there is a close resemblance to his second son, Charles Golding who was born in 1821 (ibid.). John Charles was a sensitive child and by all accounts the most like his father in temperament and looks. He took great interest in his father's work and encouraged him to paint his last great work: Arundel Mill and Castle, a picture he would later buy along with View of London from Hampstead Heath and Glebe Farm at the artist's posthumous sale at Foster's on 15-16 May 1838.

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