Stoke-by-Nayland

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1836

John Constable (English, 1776-1837)

“What say you to a summer morning?” John Constable wrote of this painting in a letter to a friend. Even after many years living in London, Constable continued to portray the countryside, dear to him from boyhood. Stoke-by-Nayland lies a few miles from his native village of East Bergholt in Suffolk. In this view, he divided the canvas between a brilliant, airy vista toward the hamlet on the left and a shady, tunnel-like country lane leading off to the right. Constable explained in his letter that the painting depicted a speciﬁc time, a morning in “July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture.” The artist emphasized the abundance of water through his painting technique, ﬂecking the surface with white highlights to create an effect of sparkling wetness. Here, the whole scene appears dewy, with a stream and puddles in the foreground and a central tree that droops from the weight of rainwater, emphasizing the fertile land.

Painted as much with a palette knife as with brushes, Stoke-by-Nayland lacks the ﬁnish of pictures Constable exhibited publicly; it was meant as a full-scale sketch for a work that he never realized. Nonetheless, this canvas seems to capture Constable’s delight in freely scribbling and scraping the image into existence—what it lacks in detail it gains in atmosphere. The roughness of the surface evokes the textures of real landscape, and the coexistence of natural and built elements in the scene embodies an ideal of harmony indicative of Constable’s vision of rural England.

Status: On loan to Tate Britain in London for Turner and Constable: Two Visions of Landscape
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: John Constable
Title: Stoke-by-Nayland
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1836
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 126 × 169 cm (49 5/8 × 66 1/2 in.); Framed: 170.2 × 212.1 × 16.6 cm (67 × 83 1/2 × 6 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Kimball Collection
Reference Number: 1922.4453
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/4758/manifest.json

C[harles] R[obert] Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq. R. A. (London: James Carpenter, 1843), 104–105.
C. J. Holmes, Constable and his Influence on Landscape Painting (Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1902), 249
“Accessions and Loans: August–November, 1922,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (Dec. 1922), 98.
Marguerite B. Williams, “Valuable Collection of Paintings Added to Chicago’s Art Treasures,” America Today–Fort Dearborn Magazine (1924): 10–11, 26.
A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute, 1925), 131 no. 750.
“Constable’s Stoke-by-Nayland,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (April 1926), 51–53.
Kimball Gallery of Paintings: 17th to 19th century (Chicago: Art Institute, nd), 37–38.
Charles Holmes, “Mr. Shirley on Lucas and the Lucas Constable,” Burlington Magazine 58 (May 1931): 253
A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute, 1932), 89 (ill.).
C. H. Collins Baker, British Painting (London: The Medici Society, 1933), 160 (ill.).
Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Art in the Century of Progress,” The Fine Arts (June 1933): 26 (ill.), 61.
R. H. Wilenski, English Painting (London: Faber and Faber, 1933), pl. 115, 218.
A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 1933), 30 cat. 190.
A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 1934), 24 cat. 136.
A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Chicago: Art Institute, 1935), 26.
C[harles] R[obert] Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, R. A., Andrew Shirley, ed. (London, The Medici Society, 1937), 339, pl. 124a.
A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Chicago: Art Institute, 1941), 32.
An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by J. M. W. Turner, John Constable, R. P. Bonington, exh. cat. (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1946, 51–52 under cat. 146.
Masterpieces of English Painting: William Hogarth, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 1946), 32 cat. 44, pl. 25.
Martin Davies, The British School (London: National Gallery, 1946), 31–32.
Andrew Shirley, John Constable, R.A. (London, The Medici Society, 1948), 25 no. 124a, pl. 124a.
Andrew Shirley, The Rainbow: A Portrait of John Constable (London: Michael Joseph, 1949), 199–200.
An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute, 1956), 31 (ill.), 32.
A Brief Guide to the Collections (Chicago: Art Institute, 1956), 32.
Andrew Carnduff Richie, Masters of British Painting, 1800–1950, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1956), 30, 33 (ill.), 135 cat. 27.
Helen Comstock, “Constable in America,” The Connoisseur 137, no. 544 (June 1956): 285
John Canaday, Mainstreams of Modern Art (New York: Henry Holt, 1959), 265 fig. 312, 267–68. [2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981, p. 90–91 fig. 106, 92–93.
Graham Reynolds, Catalogue of the Constable Collection (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1960), 195.
Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute, 1961), 82, 237 (ill.).
Graham Reynolds, Constable: The Natural Painter (New York; Toronto; London: McGraw-Hill, 1965), 130, 146 no. 78, pl. 78.
Sketches by Constable from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1966), 13.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo (Sep. 1966): 193 fig. 11, 196.
R. B. Beckett, ed., John Constable’s Correspondence, vol. 5, Various Friends, with Charles Boner and the Artist’s Children (Suffolk: Suffolk Records Society, 1967), 44–45
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1970), 264 (ill.), 279
Katherine Kuh, “These are a few of my favorite things,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1972, 33 (ill.), 34.
Basil Taylor, Constable: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors (London: Phaidon Press, 1973), no. 63 pl. 165.
M. Rosenthal, “Review: Catalogue of the Constable Collection…” Connoisseur 186 (June 1974): 151.
Robert Hoozee, L’opera completa di John Constable (Milan: Rizzoli, 1979), 145 no. 564 (ill.).
John Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America: Over 3,000 Masterpieces by 50 Great Artists (Nw York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 56.
Graham Reynolds, Constable’s England, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983), 166 cat. 60 (ill).
Leslie Parris, The Tate Gallery Constable Collection (London: Tate Gallery, 1987), 63 fig. 7, 64, 64n6.
Charles S. Rhyne, “Constable’s Last Major Oil Sketch: The Chicago ‘Stoke-by-Nayland’,” unpublished manuscript, [1987?].
Lawrence Cunningham and John Reich, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Western Humanities, vol. 2 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), 316, 317 fig. 203.
Michael Rosenthal, Constable: The Painter and his Landscapes (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), 236, fig. 263.
Graham Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 2 vols. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984), v. 1, 292 no. 36.19; v. 2, pl. 1070.
Ian Leming-Williams and Leslie Parris, The Discovery of Constable (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984), 80, 114–15.
Richard R. Brettell and Steven Starling, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300-1900, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 1986), 104 cat. 59, inaccurately numbered 1922.4433.
Malcolm Cormack, Constable (London: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 225 fig. 213, 228.
James N. Wood and Katherine C. Lee, Master paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1988), 50.
Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable and his Drawings (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 1990), 299–301 fig. 277.
Charles S. Rhyne, “Constable’s First Two Six-foot Landscapes,” in Studies in the History of Art 24 (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1990), pl. 2, 119–21, 125n3, 128n45.
Leslie Paris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1991), 15,348, 359, 380–81 cat. 218, 472.
Malcolm Warren, “John Constable,” unpublished manuscript, [1992?].
Jon Margolis, “When Paintings talk…,” Chicago Tribune Magazine (Sep. 17, 1995): 21
John Gage, Constable: le choix de Lucian Freud, exh cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2002), 256 (detail ill.), 257, 267–68 cat. 190.
Lucian Freud and William Feaver, Lucian Freud on John Constable, exh. cat. (London: British Council, 2003), 54, cat. 50.
Anne Lyles, Constable: The Great Landscapes, exh. cat. (London: Tate, 2006), 193 cat. 68 (ill.).
William Feaver, “I was Lucian Freud’s spare pair of eyes,” The Guardian, Sep. 8, 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/08/i-was-lucian-freuds-spare-pair-of-eyes [accessed Sep. 16, 2019]
James Rondeau, ed., Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the collection (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2025), 57 (ill.).
Amy Concannon, ed., Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals, exh. cat. (London: Tate, 2025), 50, 209, 218, 243, cat. 176.

Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 190.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. 136.
Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpiece of the Month, April 1940, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpieces of English Painting: Hogarth, Constable, Turner, Oct. 15–Dec. 22, 1946.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Masters of British Painting, 1800–1950, Oct. 2–Dec. 2, 1956, cat. 27; St. Louis, City Art Museum, Jan. 10–Mar. 2, 1957; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Mar. 28–May 12, 1957 [New York only].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Constable’s England, Apr. 13–Sep. 4, 1983.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300-1900, Oct. 17–Dec. 14, 1986, cat. 59, inaccurately numbered 1922.4433.
London, Tate Gallery, John Constable, June 12-Sep. 15, 1991, cat. 218.
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Constable: le choix de Lucian Freud, Oct. 8, 2002–Jan. 13, 2003, cat. 190.
London, Tate Britain, Constable: The Great Landscapes, June 1–Aug. 28, 2006, cat. 68; Washington, D.C., the National Gallery, Oct. 1– Dec. 31, 2006; San Marino, Huntington Library, Feb. 3–Apr. 29, 2007.
London, Tate Britain, Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals, November 27, 2025–April 12, 2026, cat. 176, as c. 1835–7.

Sold, the artist’s estate sale, Foster and Sons, London, May 16, 1838, lot 40 together with a sketch of the Opening of Waterloo Bridge to Joy [Graves 1918 and Day 1968]. Miss Morris; sold June 26, 1860 lot 108 to Cox [annotated sale cat. in the Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenisn, The Haag; copy in curatorial object file. See also Redford 1888]. Jonathan Nield (1790–1887), Dunster House, Rochdale, England; sold, Christie’s, London, May 3, 1879, lot 13 to Permain [annotated sale cat. in curatorial object file. See also Redford 1888, Graves 1918 and Day 1968]. Sir Frederick Thorpe Mappin (1821–1910); sold, his estate sale, Christie’s, London, June 17, 1910, lot 14 to Arthur J. Sulley & Company, London [this and the following according to Knoedler Stock Book 5, no. 12466, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; copy in curatorial object file. See also annotated sale cat. in curatorial object file ]; sold to Knoedler and Company, New York, May 1, 1911; sold to Mrs. William Wallace Kimball (died 1921), Chicago, July 11, 1911; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.

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On loan to Tate Britain in London for Turner and Constable: Two Visions of Landscape

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On loan to Tate Britain in London for Turner and Constable: Two Visions of Landscape

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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