Constable’s waterways masterpiece, second draft
IT WAS one of John Constable’s finest works, propelling him to fame after a landmark exhibition at the Royal Academy and cementing his place as one of Britain’s favourite painters.
Now lovers of The Lock with deep pockets may be surprised to learn that they can lay their hands on an original version, after a little-known second painting of the scene emerged. It is to be sold for the first time in 160 years.
The first version of the picture, depicting a river in Suffolk, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824 and sold on the first day. It was last sold at auction in 2012, for £22.4 million, when it was removed from a public gallery and placed into private hands.
This version, also dating from 1824, but said to have been painted with the luxury of more time after the exhibition, was kept in Constable’s studio all his life.
It was first sold after his death in 1837 – for £131/10s. When it was sold for the second time, in 1855, it broke the record for any work by Constable, at £860, being bought by William Orme Foster, owner of the John Bradley & Co Ironworks in Stourbridge.
It has remained in his family ever since, and hung for 100 years at Apley Hall, Shropshire.
Now it is due to be sold at Sotheby’s in December, with a conservative estimate of £12 million.
David Moore-Gywn, a consultant to Sotheby’s, said: “This is quite simply one of the most loved and celebrated works in the history of British art.”
Julian Gascoigne, a Sotheby’s specialist, added: “Constable’s absolute mastery as a landscape painter is everywhere in this picture – in the vigour of the almost impressionistic brushwork, in the drama of the clouds and the changing weather, even in the movement of the grass in the fields and the sparkle of water as it cascades through the lock.”