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John Constable · 1821
painting · Romanticism
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An empty hay wagon crosses the millpond at Flatford, beside Willy Lott’s cottage. Constable first exhibited the canvas as Landscape: Noon in 1821. Its reception in Paris in 1824 brought a gold medal, and it now belongs to the National Gallery.
The wagon gives the broad landscape a centre. Follow the shallow water back towards the cottage. Constable worked out the composition in a full-scale oil sketch before painting this canvas, almost two metres wide.
1821
National Gallery
It shows the millpond at Flatford on the River Stour, on the Suffolk-Essex border. An empty hay wagon, pulled by horses through the shallow water, is the picture's central subject, while the house on the left is Willy Lott's cottage, home to a tenant farmer said to have lived there almost his whole life. It still survives today, practically unaltered.
It is the third of Constable's 'six-footers': large-scale Stour Valley landscapes painted for the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825. The first, The White Horse, shown in 1819, had already won him praise. Constable exhibited The Hay Wain there in 1821, under its original title Landscape: Noon.
In 1824 Constable sold it, along with two other paintings, to the dealer John Arrowsmith for £250. Sent to the Paris Salon that year, it caused a sensation and won Constable a gold medal from the French king, Charles X.
Henry Vaughan presented the canvas to the National Gallery in 1886. It measures 130.2 by 185.4 centimetres.
1819. Constable's The White Horse is shown at the Royal Academy and wins him praise.
1821. He exhibits The Hay Wain at the Royal Academy under its original title, Landscape: Noon.
1824. Constable sells it to the dealer John Arrowsmith for £250; sent to the Paris Salon, it causes a sensation and wins a gold medal from Charles X.
1886. The collector Henry Vaughan presents it to the National Gallery, London.
Before painting a large exhibition picture, Constable first worked out the whole composition at full size in oil, not just on paper. His sketch for The Hay Wain survives today in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Book covers use a cropped detail.
