Near Arundel, Sussex

Constable visited George Constable (no relation) at Arundel in July 1834 and again in July 1835. This drawing is particularly close to the view of Arundel Mill and Castle executed on his second visit (Victoria & Albert Museum; see G. Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London, 1984, p. 276, no. 35.11, pl. 997). The castle is possibly behind the trees on the right as one looks east down the valley, but as Constable wrote to his friend C.R. Leslie on 16 July 1834: 'The Castle is the cheif [sic] ornament of this place...[but]...all here sinks to insignificance in comparison with the woods, and hills. The woods hang from excessive steeps, and precipices, and the trees are beyond everything beautiful: I never saw such beauty in natural landscape before' (quoted in I. Fleming-Williams, Constable and his Drawings, London, 1990,
p. 271).