Lot Essay
The fragmentary inscription 'Isey' suggests that this previously unlisted drawing was once owned by Constable's daughter Isabel. It is known that Constable copied works by earlier artists in his youth; the copy of Claude's Embarkation of Carlo and Ubaldo, dated 1795, is particularly close in technique. This watercolour was sold at Christie's London, 7 April 1992, lot 113 (£3,600). No precise model by Allaert van Everdingen (1621-1675) can be traced, but Constable's copy is close to such early drawings as the Mountain Landscape now in the Getty Museum and Forest on a Mountainside, sold at Sotheby's Amsterdam, 26 November 1984, lot 65, illustrated in colour. A drawing of the same date illustrated in G. Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London, 1996, no. 98.17, pl. 69, has recently been identified as a copy of an Everdingen etching.