Portrait study of Jane or Ann Gubbins (recto); Wooded landscape, Epsom (verso)

Ann Elizabeth and Jane were Constable's two female cousins. For a time when in London, Constable considered Hylands, the Gubbins' house, as a second home. This is probably quite a rare portrait of one of the cousins as Constable is recorded as having disappointed the girls with his industrious sketching and the lack of attention he gave them: 'A sketch could not be taken of Cousin Jane Gubbins as she anxiously hoped would have been the case...' (Mrs. Constable, see I. Fleming-Williams, Constable and his Drawings, London, 1990, p. 125).

The present drawing was once part of a now dismembered sketchbook and portrays one of the two girls. Constable's first recorded visit to Epsom, where the Gubbins lived, was in 1806. He stayed with his Aunt Mary Gubbins (née Watts) who was married to a retired builder and surveyor James Gubbins. The visit led to commissions for portraits of the Gubbins family. Another sketchbook from the visit remains intact and was in the collection of M. Étienne Auguste Moreau-Nélaton and given to the Louvre in 1927.