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- A large-scale study for John Constable’s The Cornfield was newly identified after decades in a rural Texas museum.
- Scientific analysis confirmed the painting’s materials and methods match Constable’s, reshaping understanding of the composition’s development.
- The rediscovered study, the largest known for The Cornfield, will lead Heritage Auctions’ European Art sale in June.
John Constable works seem prone to resurfacing—in a Guernsey townhouse, on TV, and from descendants of the pioneering Romantic landscape painter’s circle. The latest revelation in his oeuvre, however, has arisen from its most improbable spot yet: rural Texas. Even art historian Anne Lyles and conservator Sarah Cove—two Constable experts tasked with studying this large-scale oil study for The Cornfield (1826)—are stumped about how it got there.
The Jefferson Historical Society and Museum received this work in the late 1960s from then-New York-based Newhouse Galleries, “to support the initiative of building up this cultural institution,” said Marianne Berardi, co-director of European art at Heritage Auction. This work will lead the house’s European Art Auction in Dallas on June 5.
Over email, Berandi told me that until she visited in 2017, when Heritage facilitated a sale for the Historical Society, the new Constable was believed to be one of 85 known copies of this scene, based on Fen Lake, Suffolk. Berandi, however, suspected its authenticity. The Historical Society paid for expert assistance in 2023. Berandi recommended Cove and Lyles.
According to Heritage, the work was put through various examinations from cleaning tests to pigment analysis and infrared reflectography. They revealed “complete consistency with Constable’s materials and working methods.” The painting received a “sensitive restoration” and underwent further study. Those results complicate existing notions surrounding The Cornfield, the first Constable work to enter London’s National Gallery, in 1837.
Detail of John Constable’s study for The Cornfield (1820–26). Courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Scores of studies for The Cornfield exist, spanning scales. Measuring 55 by 48 inches, this latest iteration is the largest. “Previous commentators have talked at length about how Constable leapt from the small, preliminary works for The Cornfield directly to the finished painting,” Cove noted. “Since the rediscovery of the full-size sketch, we now know that is incorrect.” What’s more, she noticed Constable laid out this sketch in one sitting, then reworked it at least once more much later on.
“We see his thought processes actually taking place,” Cove said. “This was the very important function of a full-size sketch that he had developed over the preceding years.”
Constable artworks can reappear frequently because he made so many, due to poor visual memory. Studies were his reference photos. Constable’s were revolutionary, Impressionist before that era. Few knew of them until the Foster and Co. studio sale the year after he died. Few cared.
John Constable, The Cornfield (1826). Photo: Print Collector / Getty Images.
Constable started creating larger works to make money after marrying in 1816. Larger studies allowed him to flesh these pieces out in advance and paint faster, fresher surfaces. This newfound study stands to bridge a key gap in The Cornfield‘s evolution. It features all but a few details of the final product.
So, when did Constable paint it? Around 1820, Lyles figures, based on the primer. Maybe he stored the prepared canvas. Cove noted he reworked The Leaping Horse (1825) not long after it returned from the Royal Academy. “The handling is so similar as to suggest that this could have taken place in early 1826 alongside reworking the full-size sketch for The Cornfield,” she said.
But how did it get to Newhouse? Maybe it was one of the many bought-in works in the Foster’s sale. The ledger lists “The Corn Field; a study from nature, for the picture in the National Gallery.” Cove thinks this study unseats the previous contender, in the Newfields of Indianapolis. Lyles remains suspicious.
The work will go on view at Heritage Auctions in London between March 27 and April 2.
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