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Lot Essay
Constable's only sea voyage was on board the East Indiaman 'Coutts', Captain Robert Torin, a friend of Constable's father. 'My voyage I will mention first. I was near a month on board and was much employed in making drawings in all situations. I saw all sorts of weather...But such is the enviable state of a painter that he finds delight in every dress nature can possibly assume...I joined the ship again at Gravesend, and we proceeded on our voyage, which was pleasant enough till we got out to sea, when we were joined by three more large ships. We had almost reached the Downs when the weather became stormy, and we all put back under the North Foreland, and lay there three days. Here I saw some very grand effects of stormy clouds. I came on shore at Deal, walked to Dover, and the next day returned to London.' (letter to John Dunthorne, 23 May 1803, in John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett, vol. II, 1964, p. 33).
The group of marine drawings from this voyage are recorded in G. Reynolds, op.cit., nos. 03.5-51; Reynolds notes an entry in Farington's Diary 21 May 1803, where Constable is recorded as saying that he did not think Turner's pictures were 'true to nature and a fine selection like the works of Van de Velde, Backhuysen, etc.'.
Constable's voyage lasted nearly a month and he left the ship shortly before 6 May, when the Coutts sailed for China. In the confusion of leaving the ship he left his drawings behind but later recovered them. As noted in the provenance, these drawings were left to Charles Golding Constable, they were of particular interest to him as he was a professional sailor.
The group of marine drawings from this voyage are recorded in G. Reynolds, op.cit., nos. 03.5-51; Reynolds notes an entry in Farington's Diary 21 May 1803, where Constable is recorded as saying that he did not think Turner's pictures were 'true to nature and a fine selection like the works of Van de Velde, Backhuysen, etc.'.
Constable's voyage lasted nearly a month and he left the ship shortly before 6 May, when the Coutts sailed for China. In the confusion of leaving the ship he left his drawings behind but later recovered them. As noted in the provenance, these drawings were left to Charles Golding Constable, they were of particular interest to him as he was a professional sailor.