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Creator:
John Constable, 1776–1837
Title:

Cloud Study

Former Title(s):

Dark Cloud Study [1969, John Constable: a selection of paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, exhibition catalogue]

Date:
1821
Medium:
Oil on paper laid on panel
Dimensions:
8 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches (21.3 x 29.2 cm), Frame: 13 1/2 × 15 1/2 inches (34.3 × 39.4 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed on piece of paper affixed to verso, in brown ink: “25th Septr. 1821 about from | 2 to 3 afternoon looking to | the north- | Strong Wind at west, bright | light coming through the | Clouds which were laying | one on another”

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.147
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1981.25.147FR
Subject Terms:
clouds | gray (color) | gray (color) | light | meteorology | red | science | shadows | white (color)
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:658
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John Constable made his cloud studies in a concentrated burst of activity while living in Hampstead, north London, in the early 1820s. It was the first time he had devoted himself exclusively to skies, even though he had been painting directly from nature since 1802. The inscriptions on some of these cloud studies indicate that they took at least an hour to paint, and he seems to have used a specially prepared paper fitted to the lid of his paint box. As Constable explained at the end of his career: “I am greatly mistaken if every landscape painter will not acknowledge that his most serene hours have been spent in open air, with his palette in his hand.” Nevertheless, no painting, however rapidly worked, can capture something as transient as a cloud, and these studies should be seen as the result of Constable’s long contemplation of skies rather than as straightforward renderings of actual passing cloud formations.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022
Created by John Constable (1776-1837), the artist; by descent to his son, Captain Charles Golding Constable (1821-1878); by descent to his widow, Anna Maria Constable (née Blundell, 1841-1893); purchased at auction by Edward William Hooper (1839-1901), Cambridge, Massachusetts at Christie, Manson & Wood, London, England, June 23, 1890 (lot 95, 'Clouds: Sept. 25, 1821'), in "Works of the late John Constable, R.A" [a]; by descent to his daughter Ellen Sturgis Hooper Potter (née Hooper, 1872-1974) and her husband John Briggs Potter (1864-1949), Boston, Massachusetts [1] [b]; acquired by Gilbert Davis (1899-1983), 7 Orchard Court, London, England [2]; privately purchased by P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, England, 1965 for Paul Mellon (1907-1999) [c]; by whom given to the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, December 1981.

Notes:
[1] Edward William Hooper bequeathed his art collection to his daughters.
[2] Gilbert Davis was an actor turned art collector, who acquired a large number of British works in the 1940s and 50s. Following his marriage to the actress Winifred Shotter in 1952, he began to sell off his collection; the Huntington Museum acquired a significant number of his works on paper, while Paul Mellon later purchased some of the oil paintings. It is possible that Colnaghi not only facilitated Mellon’s purchase of the work, but also Davis’ acquisition from the Hooper Potter family.

Citations:
[a] Christie, Manson & Wood. June 23, 1890. Works of the late John Constable, R.A. https://archive.org/details/worksjohnconstable00chri/page/8
[b] Graham Reynolds, The later paintings and drawings of John Constable, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1984, p. 96, no. 21.119
[c] Ibid

In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art (Yale University Art Gallery, 2023-03-24 - 2023-12-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Heaven on Earth - The Garden through the Eyes of the Artist (Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, 2007-04-03 - 2007-07-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Heaven on Earth - The Garden through the Eyes of the Artist (Das Städel, 2006-11-23 - 2007-03-11) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Goethe and the Visual Arts (Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 1994-05-20 - 1994-08-07) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

John Constable (Tate) (Tate Britain, 1991-06-13 - 1991-09-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (Chicago Historical Society, 1988-04-06 - 1988-06-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (Indiana University Art Museum, 1988-01-27 - 1988-03-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism (New York Public Library, 1987-10-31 - 1988-01-02) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

John Constable - A Selection of Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1969-04-30 - 1969-11-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

David Bindman, The History of British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 172 (v.2), fig. 105, N6761 +H57 2008 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, p. 58-59, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Robert Hoozee, L'opera completa di Constable, 98, Rizzoli, Milano, Italy, 1979, pp. 117-18, no. 304, NJ18 C74 A12 +H66 (YCBA) [YCBA]

John Constable : a selection of paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, , National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1969, pp. 40-41, no. 40, NJ18 C74 U5 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Leslie Parris, Constable, Tate Publishing, London, UK, 1991, pp. 230-31, No. 120, pl. 120, NJ18 C74 P372 1991 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Graham Reynolds, The later paintings and drawings of John Constable, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1984, p. 82 (v.1), no. 21.52, pl. 256 (v.2), NJ18 C74 R485 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Michael Rosenthal, Constable, Thames and Hudson, London, UK, 1987, pp. 122-23, fig. 119, NJ18 C74 R683 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Michael Rosenthal, Constable, the painter and his landscape, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1983, pp. 134, 136, fig. 177, NJ18 C74 R68 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sotheby's sale catalogue : Old Master Paintings : Evening Sale : 8 July 2009, Sotheby's, London, July 8, 2009, pp. 126, 127, fig. 3, Auction Catalogues (YCBA) [YCBA]

Basil Taylor, Constable : paintings, drawings and watercolours, , Phaidon, London, UK, 1973, p. 199, note 30, no. 64, NJ18 C74 T39 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

John E. Thornes, John Constable's skies : a fusion of art and science, , University of Birmingham Press, Birmingham, UK, 1999, pp. 232-33, no. 19, pl. 101, NJ18 C74 T56 1999 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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