From tLc > .il>rary of Frank Simpson £o> There are printed, in all, only Two Hundred and Fifty-three Copies. This is No./^ CONSTABLE: LUCAS. CONSTABLE: LUCAS: WITH A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE PRINTS THEY DID BETWEEN THEM. BY FREDERICK WEDMORE. LONDON : P. & D. COLNAGHI AND CO. PALL MALL EAST. MDCCCCIV. CONTENTS. Page Constable: Lucas ...... 7 Descriptive Catalogue 33 Index ........ 57 CONSTABLE: LUCAS. 5U*Four y ears a go, about — in the Pall Persona Mall Magazine — I wrote an article on Constable's country, and in it mention was naturally made of those Prints after the master, by David Lucas, with which I am in this book occupied. Although the faults in my brief paper received Editorial indul- gence, the Prints, I know, were dealt with quite inadequately. I profoundly admired them, but had not studied them as a Collector — nor, indeed, was their existence or their excellence then meant to be my theme. I wrote on Constable's land. Now, as many people who collect the Prints, and revel in them, have never undertaken a little journey certainly desirable for the ap- prehension of their characteristic charm, I allow myself to retain and to here reprint — before proceeding to the immediate pur- pose of this book — the lines in which were set down, directly I had visited it, my im- pression of the scene of so much of Con- stable's work. At the end of the half- dozen pages devoted to the light record of my expedition, I will begin in earnest on the matter that is the proper subject of this volume. That matter was in part the theme of an Essay which Sir James Knowles encouraged me to contribute to The Nineteenth Century, last winter ; but in the present volume I at least treat it in a fuller way. 7 constable's ^» Pa ce our admirable Ruskin, faulty and great, a lover of Turner should be a lover of Constable too. The range of sympathy that permits the true appreciation of the one, involves, surely, no lukewarm apprecia- tion of the other. I had been Constable's lover for many a year before I saw the land that produced him, and the haunts that were those of his youth. Hampstead, a dwell- ing-place of Constable's, in later life, was familiar enough to me. Brighton and Wey- mouth, too, and the Sussex Downs — I had found him there. But the countryside of his birth — that retained, to the end, his deepest affection, and inspired so much of his work — I had never seen it till the mid-October of 1899 ; and then I found that to see it was to appreciate, even more deeply, the art and the truth of the master. Colchester Travelling to Colchester, I remember, on a Saturday morning, I took up my abode at the * Cups ' ; made sure of my bear- ings ; lunched ; and then, in a direction not chosen carelessly, went for my afternoon walk. I strolled in the direction of Constable's villages ; knowing well that I should stop several miles short of them. My walk was in an upland country, north or north-east of the Colchester railway station — it was a long field-walk. And there, without specially looking for, or specially expecting him, I at once found Constable. A day or two afterwards, driving to his villages — 8 crossing and recrossing his River Stour, near Dedham Church, near Stoke-by-Neyland — I found him certainly not more. It was perhaps about three o'clock, when I stood, that Saturday afternoon, in the high grass field, with a great tree, a wind-blown Con- stable tree, in the centre of it, and, at its sides, blackberry hedges. There was the slope of it ; the light of it ; the lowland country beyond, with a slow stream wind- ing to the sea. Above all, there was the weather and the sky. The weather brisk ; a sky of Autumn cloud, shifting and luminous. One's ' great-coat ' — Fuseli's first thought, before a Constable picture — one undoubtedly wanted, but one's walk would be over before there was any need 'to call for one's umbrella.' Not only colour, and light, and that which in com- parison with the obvious symmetry of the Old Masters may be described as 'form- less form,' were there ; but the scale and the spaciousness too — those only of three dis- tricts that I am privileged to know at all, in the England that I love : the Sussex Downs, the Wolds and Moors of Yorkshire, and now the rolling Essex upland of pastur- age and ploughed land, which more than any other is the country of Constable. A day or two afterwards I drove to The Constable's villages. The learned had told Uls me the way. I must not do this, I must not do that, they had said ; it was by b 9 making a certain round, in the direction indicated, that I was to see the land — to get, best of all, at its real characteristics ; to see it as the master of large yet homely Landscape had most of all been minded to paint it. To NeyW. Starting irom Colchester main street — from the quaint old town, that, standing on a peaked hill which dominates a plain, is the Puy of the Eastern Counties, as Puy is the Colchester of Auvergne — you at once descend rapidly ; then cross a canal, pass into the suburbs, leave on your left hand the railway, and on your right a rose-garden that has given new fame to Colchester ; and then you slowly mount again — the carriage-road skirting the upland fields I had walked in on the Saturday — and, after a certain space ot table-land, you reach Great Horkesley, from whose park-like Rectory fields you may get perhaps your first glimpse of the square-towered Church of Stoke, gleaming in morning sunlight, amidst its setting of Autumnal woods, on the long- stretched hillside. The drive of a mile onwards from Horkesley takes you down into Neyland ; but, in descending, there is one point of view not to be lost. At a certain point of the road the tower ot Neyland is to be seen in the tree-embosomed valley — a middle distance that has, for its not remote background, the steeps and wooded slopes amidst which there asserts 10 itself the tall tower of Stoke. Just as you enter Neyland, you cross the Stour, into Suffolk. You notice Neyland's own atten- uated, meagre tower. Then you mount again, to Stoke. £^ At Stoke, with all the placid beauty of stoke, the hour and scene — for the day was typical October not at all, but a day of St. Luke's Summer, so unlike that first Saturday of Constable's rougher weather — I was unable to contain myself : I got out of the carriage. I have read that the great Goethe, to the very end of his life, to the last day of more than eighty honoured years, shook a little nervously, vibrated with feeling, when in presence of a human personality with the charm of beauty and youth. Allow us, then, as common folk, to be a little excited in the presence of exquisite Landscape. At Stoke — as I avowed before — I got out of the carriage. ^gjm The Church, large and noble, can only stoke V 7 *^. . . ° , U .* £ . Churc be important as it is, by reason 01 the tact that in the pious time when it was built, wealth as well as piety belonged to that land. The Flemings had settled there, with industries then remunerative, long since extinct. As noticeable almost as the church, is the large, level churchyard, flanked by a natural terrace, with lime-trees to the South. The lime-tree terrace — for it is high noon now — is all resplendent sunshine : copper, and gold, and sunny green. I take away 1 1 the vision and the memory, and, with that, I get again into the carriage. Dedham. The course of the drive, now, is through Hadleigh to Stratford. I am, alas ! without recollection of Hadleigh — though it, no doubt, as well as that other Hadleigh of the Essex coast, figured in one of Lucas's mezzo- tints — is not without its place in the work of Constable. We are on low ground now again, and approach Stratford. There is a fine, great, florid Church at Stratford ; and, standing under it, looking across the wide green flats, the tower of Dedham is seen on the first slope of gentle hillside that mounts northwards. Outside Stratford — ' Stratford St. Mary, from London fifty-eight miles,' says the milestone — you cross the Stour again, are once more in Essex, out of Suffolk, and the road slants upwards a little, to the broad, clean Dedham street. The house Why is my ingratitude so perverse and cobboid-s. ignoble that I have forgotten the name of the village inn, when the names of so many other hostelries, sordid and unsatisfactory, are graven yet on a brain of uncertain ser- vice ? I have forgotten it, anyhow. Yet it has not been inflicted upon me that I should forget the honest landlady ; that I should forget the low, deep, bow-windowed room; the slice of succulent cold beef — a sirloin never prematurely tampered with while it was hot, and therefore, when at last, at the right moment, cut discreetly, 12 found juicy and admirable to its final inch — the good Cheddar cheese, and Cobbold's ale. ' The house is Cobbold's/ said the handmaid who set me my lunch. £ And Heaven forbid,' said I, in pale imitation of the only traveller I have known more ' sentimental ' than myself, 4 Heaven for- bid that it should be any other's ! ' All this good fare awaited me in the parlour, with a horsehair couch, a varnished map of Essex hung on the wall, and, in a glass case, a stuffed otter. ' Caught in our river — but before I came here.' The handmaid, again ! . . . And I thought I was at Dedham to see Constable ! Flatford Mill, that he painted so often, Fiatford. is down the river, from Dedham. The Glebe Farm — familiar also — is by Langham Hall and Church. 4 Willy Lott's House' — is introduced into the famous ' Hay Wain ' that Henry Vaughan gave to the National Gallery, and the subject, too, of one of the less important, perhaps, of the Lucas mezzotints, yet a piece whose simple solemnity has a charm — is, again, upon the river. 1 am brought now to these e Lucas The Prints, mezzotints,' which reproduce so marvel- lously that Art of Constable which itself reproduced — or finely exalted — the Nature he lovingly beheld. And so — asking the reader to believe that I got safely back to Colchester, having spent an hour, after x 3 Claude's ' Liber.' And Turner's lunch, in the broad, well-to-do tranquillity of Dedham village — I leave my personal experience, and shall begin to set down such particulars as may seem fit, about the publication once ignored, now greatly sought for, which gathers up the characteristics of Constable's Art, and which, if all his pictures vanished, would ensure the duration of his fame. And first, as regards the scope of it. Claude made the pen-and-ink washed sketches which he calls 4 Liber Veritatis ' for his own satisfaction, and as a business- like series of memoranda of work he had elsewhere achieved in full. A hundred years later, Earlom engraved them. Turner, not unmindful of this long record, which an engraver in mezzotint had made, of the art of Claude, came to secure for himself a record, not of particular compositions, but of the whole range and spirit of his art. Such was his ' Liber Studiorum.' That work, in his turn, Constable knew ; and, after the manner or an artist busy with the attainment of quite different ideals, did not really appreciate. ' Turner, with his Liber Stupidorum? he says, in a letter that has not till this moment seen the light. The range and spirit of his art it became desirable to him to set forth. The sympathetic talent Landscape.' of David Lucas offered itself, and both were expressed to perfection. The prints, which it was arranged should be from end to end H The English in mezzotint, were only about half as numerous as those which, a dozen years before, had, by the arrest of their publication, ceased to expound, so to say, the varied ability of Turner — they were not a sixth part as numerous as those much slighter prints which, at an earlier day, had furnished, so to put it, a charming illustrated catalogue, of the themes of Claude. In the matter of numbers, these transcripts from Constable — these visions of Constable rather — for literal transcripts of particular pictures they hardly ever were — could not compare with ' Liber Veritatis ' or 6 Liber Studiorum.' Yet in artistic estimation theirs can be no second place. In the P^ieiace to the first and by far the most important series of mezzotints — the only series that counts — the set or twenty-two, I mean, the c English Land- scape,' published in Constable's lifetime — Constable says : 4 The author rests in the belief that the present collection of prints ot Rural Landscape may not be wholly un- worthy of attention. It originated in no mercenary views. . . . He had imagined to himself an object in Art, and has always pursued it. Much of the Landscape form- ing the subject of these plates going far to embody his ideas (owing perhaps to the rich and feeling manner in which they are engraved), he has been tempted to publish them.' ^0*The aim of the publication, Constable its aim. *5 says, 8 is to increase the interest in Rural England ; its professional purpose, to mark the influence of light and shadow upon landscape.' And again, 8 to give to " one brief moment caught from fleeting Time " a lasting and sober existence.' There is nothing, I think, in all the range of Engraved Landscape Art that does this so completely. its compass. Constable's land, and a little and not much beyond that land of obvious limita- tion, yet of various charm, is recorded in his prints. But the range of his prints is practically that of his painting ; and had Coleorton been recorded, and had there been but one performance reminding us that in an occasional excursion the Lake District had impressed him, Lucas's mezzo- tints would have left untouched scarcely a scene that Constable had strongly cared for. As it is, the lover of Constable finds, either in the great Set, which are chiefly little masterpieces, or in the miscellaneous group that counts some little masterpieces amongst its more frequent failures, most of those places and effects in which he has reason to know that Constable was interested : first and foremost, of course, the land of the Stour, in radiant Summer and in windy Spring ; then the Heath of Hampstead; then Salisbury and Old Sarum, the winding of the Avon, and the mound upon the Plain ; then breezy clouds beheld 16 from Brighton beach ; the airy flatness or Yarmouth ; and Weymouth Bay, stretched out under a raging sky. Passing over, in some such fashion as its Hmita- this, in one's own mind, the scenes of his tlons ' practice, one realizes how much more re- stricted in aim — as regards his obvious theme, at least — was Constable, than was that illus- trious contemporary whose publication he partially condemned, though he admired, deeply, much of his work. Turner's 'Liber' and Constable's c Landscape ' were both of them monuments. Constable, in sentences I have already quoted, has defined his own chief purpose. Turner's quite different one was, not to exhibit Nature's chiaroscuro, and the English Land as it is affected and made delightful and serene, or dramatic and dreary, by accidents of season and weather, but to exhibit, rather, the whole range of Landscape Art, as he conceived it — to be concerned with History, with common or elegant Pastorals, with architectural remains, with marine or mountainous scenery. Each artist had his success. Each, in the main, achieved his aim ; but Constable the more completely, because he allowed himself no excursion into territories in which he was not sure of his way. A good deal of fault — unnecessary rault, I must think, often — has been found with the 4 Liber Studiorum.' Its historical themes deserve, as I consider, their dignified place : its domestic themes c iy attain homeliness, though, unlike the do- mestic themes of Constable, they but seldom attain charm. Some few of the pieces, artificial, conventional, are failures alto- gether. Constable must have alluded to these, when he said, in writing to Lucas, ' We have no nearly bad subjects.' It was a letter in which, in one of his times of depression, he fell foul of a dealer, £ Mr. White, of Brownlow Street,' who — long after the actual or nominal publication of the work, I suppose — ' offered to propagate and guarantee the money for Turner and his " Liber Stupidorum " for 1 5 per cent, (com- mission), and will not do the same for me under 35 per cent.' 'Therefore,' adds Constable, 1 let us protect ourselves by draw- ing the circle a little closer. We have no nearly bad subjects.' its method. Attention having been briefly called to the differences in artistic aim between the 'Liber Studiorum' and that 'English Land- scape' Series which represents best the com- bined arts of Constable and David Lucas, and counts for nearly half of all the pieces Lucas engraved after the master, it is well to take cognizance of this one fact in regard to the technical methods of publications which must ever be rivals — the technical method of each was adapted perfectly to the nature of the work to be done. The virile and decided, if sometimes arbitrary, support of the etched line, backing the delicate mezzo- 18 tint, was as appropriate to the c Liber,' with its insistence on place, its emphasis on form, its relative indifference to (at all events its subordination of) the subtler phenomena of atmospheric change, as it would have been inappropriate to that ' English Landscape ' which, not neglecting indeed the charm of association, or the virtue of Composition in line and mass — nay, excelling in that, very often — did nevertheless propose, as the main object of each of its several pieces, to give lasting and sober existence to one brief moment c caught from fleeting Time.' The scraped mezzotint, much more than the strongly bitten line of the etcher, is, it is felt instinctively, the medium of expression for Constable's Art. And, if the medium of expression for The Constable's Art, save when he used the brush En s raver - himself, and the canvas, was the mezzotint of the Engraver, fortunate was Constable in the association with him of an artist of genius — David Lucas — a pupil of S. W. Reynolds, who had first discovered his gifts. He was a young man, not long emancipated from apprenticeship — he was twenty-seven, and the year was 1829 — when Constable began to know him. For very long it seemed to be uncertain which was actually the first print wrought by the Engraver, after Constable. Accounts differ. Leslie, in his Memoir of the painter, says it was the plate that he calls ' Dedham Mill.' But Lucas avers 19 it was that lyric of storm, the Hampstead Heath — the 'Vignette' — first of all in that State in which no St. Paul's is visible, and in which it is the figure of Collins, the Academician, who sits, with a tall city hat, on the brow of the hill. The large Hadleigh plate — never actually published till nearly a score of years afterwards — somehow quickly followed — and so, more naturally, did the Stoke by Neyland, the Weymouth Bay, the Old Sarum, the Noon, the Sea Beach (Brighton). Nor far removed from them were A Heath (which is another Hampstead), and Spring and Summer Morning, and the hock on the Stour. And this is worth remembering ; for Constable — in the main rightly — set most store by the plates earliest executed. 5^ Notwithstanding the announcements that were made from time to time — some of them actually published ; others, perhaps, rather printed tentatively than put into much circulation — Constable was long uncertain as to the number of plates ot which ' English Landscape ' should consist. Now, there were to be twenty-two ; now there were to be something like thirty ; now there were to be fourteen — lack of appre- ciation half decided the painter that there should be ' three numbers only.' Then — so far as publication was concerned — what was originally fixed was finally adhered to — twenty-two plates, in five numbers, the first holding the Frontispiece, and the last the Vignette — but there had been wrought several pieces besides, which it was decided for the time to reject. S^The account in Leslie's Memoir is itself Difficulties, detailed enough to make us aware of the uncertainties and difficulties that beset the publication, and we are told that Constable was harassed by it. But to know com- pletely how much he was harassed, and, in spite of the prints' artistic success, how profoundly depressing was Constable's pre- occupation with the matter, one must go — as I have gone — through a mass of letters, only a few of which did Leslie quote from, and then very often he quoted with reticence, with reserve, with special consideration for people living when his nar- rative was sent forth. The art of Lucas, Constable highly appreciated. He appre- ciated it as much as he resented the public indifference to its display in the adequate presentation of his own genius. Quite truth- fully, I am sure, he wrote of Lucas, to Archdeacon Fisher, ' His great urbanity and integrity are only equalled by his skill as an engraver, and the scenes now transmitted by his hand are such as I have ever preferred.' Yet, as time went on, there was friction — a constant friction over details, to say the least — much plain-speaking : much needless grumbling, I will even venture to consider ; though never any actual unfriendliness. The £ mass of letters ' I have referred Letters to _ Lucas. to, belong to Mr. H. S. Theobald, K.C., who very kindly permits me a completely free use of them. But I will quote with discretion. With but one or two exceptions — one most lamblike rejoinder, in particular, on the part of Lucas, to Constable's com- plaints of delay — they are letters, notes, scraps of memoranda, from the Painter to the Engraver who collaborated with him. They are intimate : they are meant to be considerate : they are affectionate sometimes — but they make very sad reading. Begin- ning in 1829, they go on to 1835, and in 1837 Constable died. I have been forced to the conclusion that their tone is affected enormously by the artist's declining health. Their very outward aspect suggests gradual decay. Allowing fully for the fact that some amongst them are mere lists, scrawled rapidly — plans, changed and re-changed, as to the order of the plates and the subjects of them — there is still extremely visible the difference between the well-written, calmly composed notes of the earlier years. — notes written with the neatness and precision almost of the man who addresses a hostess of the near Future, and accepts or declines an invitation to dinner — and the unkempt and hurried, not to say petulant, fragments with which the melancholy Correspondence is continued. I am certain that the ner- vous health of Constable was suffering at the time ; and I am confident that if the 22 matter, the ticklish, difficult matter, could have been begun and finished in the previous decade, we should have had less irritability, less outcry, less apprehension, less despair. I must trace the course very briefly. The course 'I like your first plates, you see, by far, Affai?. very far, the best,' Constable writes, even in 1830. In 1 83 1, ' I like the Head of the Lock exceedingly.' In the same year — July 19 it was — 6 1 like the Heath beyond all the plates.' But — as early as 1830 — 'I allow much for your distractions with those devils the printers, and your finances, and other matters not in unison with patient toil.' Yet, on New Year's Day, 183 1, ' the Second Number is much, very much, liked.' And so, in January 1 831, 'I am in good heart about the whole of our proceedings.' In February, £ I like the proofs exceedingly, but, as I have the picture, I wish to give a few touches.' (And possibly the touches given were exactly those which lessened massiveness and unity, anxious though Constable really was to preserve them). And now, ' Come and see me at six this evening, and take the things away, lest I change again.' S^Then things got worse. In January Friction. 1832, 'I was engaged to meet some brother Academicians, when your brother's arrival with the proof completely took away my desire to join them, and I have therefore declined, as I know I should have been out 23 of spirits.' Then, on an envelope, 'To Mr. Lucas, 27 in some street in Chelsea, but the Devil only knows where.' He means West- bourne Street. In the same year, 'The Glebe Farm I compounded for with many regrets. Be assured, dear Lucas, the plate of the Glebe Farm is utterly abortive. It is all, all, that I have wished to avoid. The book is made by me to avoid all that is to be found there — a total absence of breadth, richness, tone, chiaroscuro, and substituting soot, black fog, smoke, scratches, edginess, and an intolerable and restless imitation.' In December 1834 — what with delays and difficulties — ' Let me see and hear of these matters as little as possible, for neither my health, nor my time, nor my children's pro- perty, will bear any further encroachments upon them. I want quiet, if I can procure it. Would that I had the wings of a dove ! I would fly away from a scene in which one finds nothing but cupidity and ingrati- tude. Rhodes, even, has been encroaching on my temper and generosity.' ' Rhodes, even ! ' — a worthy from whom something better might have been expected, it seems. And Lucas — tiresome no doubt, yet also how amenable and gentle! — 'I have just received your letter. As you desire it, I do not delay sending back the picture ; and so allow me to say I most fervently wish you that peace which you say I have helped to disturb.' With this, we stop the melancholy chronicle. 24 The publication of the ' English Land- constable's scape * — it will have been gathered long s P eculatlon ' ago — was Constable's speculation — as, some twenty years earlier, that of the 'Liber' had been Turner's. The interval between them allowed the use of mezzotint on steel, in |1 the rendering of Constable's work : Turner's plates having been about the last great things on copper. Quite an early bill, amongst the many accounts and lists which, with the letters, are the documents of Mr. Theobald, says, * A Heathy Old Sarum, Mi//, and Spring — the four plates at 15 guineas each will be £63, and an additional present of £5:4: 3.' The fees would not appear to have been ruinous ; but, from beginning to end, many plates were undertaken — some seven-and-twenty being engraved for Con- stable himself, though not so many actually used. The appreciation of the work, ex- cept from a few connoisseurs, was small ; and about the printing there were many ex- penses. The modest price Constable charged the The prices public was, for the open letter impressions on then * India paper, Two guineas the Part ; for open letter impressions (he calls both ' Proofs ') on French paper — and these are often at the very least as fine — A guinea and a Half; for * Prints,' as Constable called them — he means later impressions, with slightly varied lettering — A guinea. Now as each Part contained not less than four subjects, and d 25 the First and Fifth — by reason of the 'Fron- tispiece ' and ' Vignette ' — contained five, it is clear there could have been bought then, for a few shillings an impression, pieces The prices now worth, in corresponding State, two or three guineas. And not much more than a few shillings would have been bestowed, then, on the broad, massive, early Trial Proofs — those transcripts summary and magnificent — for one or other of which a ten- or twenty- pound note may to-day be held, quite reasonably, to be an insufficient ransom. The plates And now some words about such plates °Land- * e of Lucas's, from Constable, as are outside the scape.' set 0 £c English Landscape/ Apart from three or four, practically unobtainable, very small pieces, which Mr. Ernest Leggatt succeeded in chronicling among his hundred and fifty examples of David Lucas's so different works after many painters — this little book of Mr. Leggatt's I would recommend strongly to the student of the Engraver — apart, I say, from three or four pretty but practically unobtainable and unimportant things, the plates from Constable that are outside that 'English Landscape ' Series which I most of all admire and recommend, consist of a few plates meant originally for the ' English Landscape,' but excluded from it — and yet in certain rare impressions, as fine as any- thing that it contains — and of the plates done, or at least finished, after Constable's 26 death, by Lucas on his own account — and these are very inferior — and, last, of the few quite large plates — colossal plates, all but two of them — which are extremely popular in a world that is scarcely the Collector's, and which fetch prices that, mounting often into three figures, cannot, in my opinion, reasonably be raised. I may be a bad prophet; but I take it, as artistic appre- ciation grows, and as the habit grows of buying for the folio and the box as well as for the wall, the huge plates will not be wanted increasingly — the admiration of the intelligent must be more and more concen- trated upon those plates of moderate scale — plates broad without vastness, rich with- out overpowering heaviness, subtle without a wearisome minuteness — which are devoted to the finer and most finely treated themes of ' English Landscape.' Amongst the plates not included, al~ The Salisbury though once meant to be included, in the S e ant ° r Series, some of whose vicissitudes I have g^JJ 1 *," endeavoured to trace, are the Mill near Brighton^ and the Salisbury. I take it the Mill near Brighton was excluded for no other reason than that it is an upright piece with no companion to it, as to form. ' I have brought the Mill to perfection,' Constable wrote — perfection as to com- position, that was ; for perfection as an engraving was reached yet more notably at an earlier stage — it is seen in but very 27 few Proofs. The Salisbury — I mean, now the Salisbury for the 6 Landscape,' and not the great plate called The Rainbow — greatly exercised him. He did not publish it at all; because, though it had been noble and delightful in two most different stages of its trial — in the one stage, massive and nobly sombre ; in the other, surpassingly brilliant — it came to grief, unexpectedly, only a little later. It was never properly recovered. Moon issued a few copies after Constable's day. Bohn had it in his book in 1855 — a wreck that does not count. A high value is legitimately set upon the half- dozen extremely fine impressions of it. other good The fourteen plates issued, in 1 844, by in the Lucas on his own account, and in size and •Landscape.' cnaracterj anc [ sometimes in performance, more or less uniform with the 4 Landscape,' include pieces as good as On the Orwell — so very fresh and breezy, although, for a reason that I mention on a later page, quite rightly excluded from the Series — and Willy Lotfs House — so restful and so solemn — but these were among the plates that Constable him- self had had a hand in. Failures. j cannot believe it was only because Constable had not had a hand in them, that the later pieces — the later Hampsteads, the Arundel Castle^ one Stour subject, the Stonehenge, for instance, failed. Lucas, at his best, understood Constable perfectly ; inter- preted him nobly — was in sympathy with 28 him. I must put down these later failures partly to lack of guidance ; partly to a decay in Lucas's own powers. Various, I take it, were the ways in which, long before that time, the amiable and gifted being had shown that he wanted self-control. Save for a chance Proof here and there, that may look tolerable, these later things had best be disregarded. On the project of issuing them, Leslie, when Constable was dead, pronounced a blessing. But, save for a chance Proof or so, they — or many of them — merit neglect; and the Collector does already distinguish, in the main, between that to which it is his business to be in- different and that which it is his business to seek. The large plates, engraved and issued Large at widely different periods — and notwith- plates standing what I have said about collecting them, all good in their own way, in early impressions — are six in number. Of these, Hadleigh was the first wrought. It was pro- duced, although not nominally published, before the greatly yet not entirely corre- sponding piece which figures in the 1 English Landscape.' The large Salisbury, on the other hand — the piece best known as The Rainbow — dates only after the production of the smaller Salisbury, which is, in certain proof impressions, as I have said before, so noble and desirable, and after these a failure. To 1834 belong the large plates of The Lock 29 and The Cornfield. Of 1838 is the large V ale of Dedham ; of 1 840, it would seem, The Young Waltonians — and they are fine things, both of them, though not of the finest — and Constable never saw them. * states.' In making any arrangement that should seem reasonable, in regard to ' States,' of all the Constable Prints, in the Catalogue that follows this Essay, I have had the greatest possible difficulty. To begin with, the changes in the work are extraordinarily intricate — they are positively baffling in many cases. The variations in the actual work (I am not talking of the quality ot the impression) in Turner's 'Liber Studi- orum,' are absolutely nothing in comparison : for, while the plate is making, they record steady progress, and when, at a later stage, the plate is worn here and there, they are the result of some plan for amendment, defi- nitely formed and promptly executed. With Constable, often all is uncertainty and all is indecision. T1 J e a-a And then again, one is confronted, in splendid % c . * incomplete- the case or these Constable mezzotints, with published"" evidence enough of the fact that here, very states. often, the professedly incomplete is finer than the professedly completed — when the First Published State is reached there may be excellence remaining, but something of the delightfulness, since something of the energy and vigour, of the pure mezzotint has often gone. A fine impression of the First Published 3° State is a desirable thing — a wonderful thing, in fact, in comparison with the im- pressions of the States, generally, that suc- ceed it. The First Published States, — or ' Open Letter Proofs,' as they have been called hitherto — which, when Trial Proofs were yet available with comparative ease, were wont to be a little neglected — will have, henceforth, to be collected more seriously. That process is beginning. A I Set, if chosen by Constable himself for I presentation, or, still better, if the result of I some good judge's more recent and more scrupulously careful gathering, is already a treasure. Yet it will ever remain the joy of the Col- The joy lector to assemble, where he can, although collector, with greater effort and with higher outlay, those earlier, sometimes even immature, im- pressions — the Trial Proofs — which, with the quality of noble prints, combine the quality of noble and impulsive drawings. They are so massive, so potent, and so personal. Each is delightful ; many are unique ; and together they build up and form a history, intricate and curious, of the work. The Early Trial Proofs then (they may have, perchance, a pencil note of Constable's in the margin, but they ought not to be drawn upon and smeared with body colour), and then the just Finished Trial Proofs — sometimes perfection itself — and then the £ open letter proofs,' First Pub- lished States really (still very fine, even if 3 1 absolutely virginal no longer), and then the Second Published States, good, but less good, and then the great deterioration of all — those latest States and printings which the Col- lector with the trained eye can never be happy with, although something, of course, the sad remains of charm and merit, is yet theirs — that enumeration marks in brief, I think, the stages of a work now and here- after to be reckoned among the happiest ex- pressions of pictorial genius — among the most prized Classics of the Engraver's Art. Frederick Wedmore. 3 2 CATALOGUE. 1. — EAST BERGHOLT, SUFFOLK. A square- built Georgian house, with a lawn and slender trees in front of it. Dark trees to the right, and in the fore- ground, lower than the lawn, a paddock, or corner of a Home Park, with water. This is the Frontispiece to the English Landscape' Series, which extends to No. 22 of the present Catalogue. The house is that of Golding Constable — the painter's father. And this was probably the print that Leslie speaks of as having been shown to a lady who called the house in it an ugly thing. < Madam,' said Constable, * I never saw an ugly thing in my life ; for, let the form of an object be what it may, light, shade and perspective will always make it beautiful. It is perspective which improves the form of this.' Early Trial Proofs with no definition of detail in the house front. Then, Proof with the house front partially defined. Then, wholly defined, and high lights showing on the square wooden enclosure in the field, to protect a tree, not there. First Published State. With the Latin quotation 4 Hie locus ingenius,' instead of ' ingenuis.' The Title, instead of being in open letter, is already more or less filled in. Second Published State. The correction made, to ' in- genuis.' And a dog, to the right — now lying down — is expressed more clearly. The plate thus far has not deteriorated much. Third Published State. With the words * Fond recollec- tions round the memory twine.' Fourth Published State. The publication line — '1831 ' — removed for Bohn's pale issue in a volume dated 1855. Not only by wear, but, as I take it, also by process of time, the plates had now frightfully suffered. 5fx7£. 2. — SPRING. A great table-land, a wide horizon, and the passing of clouds. The gable of a cottage to the left, seen between wind-swept trees. In mid-distance, a farm- boy at the plough. A windmill to the right. It is wild March weather ; hail-storms and sunshine pass over the land. e 33 The scene is East Bergholt Common. The windmill was Constable's father's, and in it, in youth, Constable actually worked. Lord Windsor, in his recent * Life of Constable,' mentions that Mr. Ernest Leggatt has a sepia sketch which the artist made for Lucas, who wrote to Mr. Hogarth, 'This blot of the windmill has reference to the engraving of Spring. It was done to explain the altered shapes of the vanes in their different positions. . . . A miller could tell not only what they were doing inside, but the direction and force of the wind blowing at that time.' Mr. Theobald has an early Trial Proof of extraordinary vividness and force. It is before the spire and tower of the little church, quite in the distance, and has no defini- tion of a window in the cottage gable. The British Museum has an early Proof with spire and tower, but with no lights about them, and a Proof, immediately following, with directions that spire and tower are to be softened, and with two crows drawn in, as flying low, in the near foreground. I have a Proof with these things done, and with a marginal note by Constable. Mr. Clough has a touched Proof, as if for further definition of the cloud over the head of the ploughman. It is from Miss Constable's Sale, and is inscribed, 'The last touched. May 1 8, 1830.' First Published State. With open-letter Title. Second Published State. The lettering of Title strengthened. - Third Published State. The publication line and date, * 1832/ removed for Bohn's pale issue. 5x9f. 3.— AUTUMNAL SUNSET. The sun sets glowingly to the right, its light striking across an undulating land- scape with a valley in shadow in mid-distance. In the foreground field, that slopes towards the sun, are three figures — one of them on horseback. Early Trial Proofs before the birds and much work in the sky, and with the tree to the extreme left short and undefined. In the margin of a Proof, belonging to Mr. Theobald, Constable has drawn the birds in, spiritedly. Lucas then, inadequate for once, tamely rendered them. 34 First Published State. Open letter Title. Second Published State. The Title strengthened. Third Published State. The publication line, with date * 1 83 1,' removed. Bonn's issue. 5£x9J. 4. NOON. Looking from a high field — the top of which, with the white sheep, is brilliantly illuminated — to a great stretch of country, seen under a sky in part radiant, and in part charged with summer rain-clouds that have this moment gathered. To the right— not quite in the foreground— a large, leafy tree. The middle distance is more or less wooded. Beyond it, the long lines of a flat land of farm and field make in their placid monotony a telling contrast to the changeful pageant of the sky that is behind and above them. It was the ' West End Fields,' at Hampstead, that were able, seventy or eighty years ago, to suggest to Constable this picture. _ , The British Museum has an extremely early Trial Proof : an almost meaningless muddle— the thing's beginning. Mr. Theobald has two early Proofs, but more advanced than the Museum's, and taken by Constable himself— * wiped with his silk pocket-handkerchief,' as a note by Lucas certifies. One of these two is like a powerful drawing. Mr. Percy Home has a beautiful Proof, before the removal of the two sheep largest and lowest amongst the flock on the hillside. Three or four Trial Proofs, really finished, but before all letters, likewise represent the plate in its perfection— high noon, in Summer weather. First Published State. With open letters. It is sometimes still wonderfully subtle. Second Published State. With letters filled in, and the plate much deteriorated. Third Published State. Bohn's almost ruined issue. 1 he publication line, with date 1 1830,' erased. 5,_RIVER STOUR, SUFFOLK. In the foreground a clump of trees, small river-craft, waterside herbage, and 35 the bend of a stream. A gabled house. In mid-distance, a wooden bridge crosses the river, which is now in shadow, and now in light. There is a barge to the left of the bridge, and Dedham Church tower rises beyond remote water meadows. Mr. Theobald has an early Proof with no high light over the wooden bridge, and the sky very little defined. First Published State. Open lettered Title. Second Published State. Title strengthened. Third Published State. The publication line and date, of 1 83 1, removed. Bohn's issue. 5f x 8f . 6.— SUMMER MORNING. In the light of a Summer morning, a restful landscape is beheld from a high field where are two cows, a milkmaid, and her milking- pail. Beyond them, to the right, a shadowed slope ; while, a little to the left, there is gleam and gleam of" the river ; Dedham Church tower, rising from amidst clusters of trees, and, to end all, a broad tract of sunlit water. The sky is mainly quiet and sunny. Oblique rays, and a flight of birds to the right. c Nature,' says Constable, * is never seen, in this climate, to greater perfection than at about nine in the mornings of July and August : the landscape gemmed with morning dew.' Most rare and desirable, rich and luminous Trial Proofs, with a man with a gun in the foreground. Next, the man's place is taken by a young woman, looking rather to the left. A Proof with marginal note in pencil, by Constable, for the further definition of the plough in the foreground. When that is accomplished the figure is again changed. First Published State. The figure, as now changed, remains a woman's, but has become smaller: the per- spective less violent — less really true, I suppose — the eye is led, it may be, more gradually into the distance. By this time, however, only chosen impressions are in good condition. In the later impressions of this State, the sky and distance have become terribly effaced. Second Published State. The Title open-letter no longer. Third Published State. The publication line, with date * 1 83 1,' removed for Bohn's volume. 51x8£. 36 7. — SUMMER EVENING. In the foreground, a warm pasture land slopes to the left. A white cow stands in the middle of it — knee-deep in the grass. A distance of wooded country. A crescent moon, and a sunset sky, bright here, dark there — wreathed everywhere into fantastic forms. Mr. Home and Mr. Theobald have immature Proofs, before a man, less than three inches from the lower right corner ; the illumination of the landscape tentative and rather unintelligible. The British Museum has Proofs with the figure removed, and Mr. Home has one with the landscape now properly illuminated. In later Proofs, another man appears, shouldering some implement, whose character is not expressed completely. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. With flight of birds across the sunset sky. Third Published State. Bohn's. The date « 183 1 ' re- moved. 5£x8£. 8. — A HEATH. A splendid sweep of country : first, in the upland, broken and shadowed ; then widening into the plain. A waggon and horses in the right foreground, under the shadowed sand-pit. A house on the ridge of the Heath. There is water to the left, and a horse and horseman just entering it. Beyond them, a dark sweep of land with poplars rising against a sky that is black, ominous, and capable of deluge. To the right, a great white cloud. The whole land is alive with gleaming lights, and rich, dramatic darkness. Of this print Constable wrote to Lucas, * I like the Heath beyond all the plates.' The British Museum has a very rudimentary Proof with hardly a trace of sky above the level of the poplars, with much of the foreground formless shadow, and with no figures at the edge of the pool. Mr. Percy Home and Mr. Theobald have impressions that are a little more advanced, but still before the figures and the dog ; and Mr. Clough has a Proof with the square house still windowless. First Published State. With open title. Second Published State. Title more filled. 37 Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line (date 1 1831 ') removed. 5| x 7f . 9. — A DELL, HELMINGHAM PARK, SUFFOLK. A dell, crossed by a wooden foot-bridge, which is backed by dark foliage. Two or three tree trunks writhe in the foreground. Scarcely any sky is seen. Mr. Theobald and one or two other Collectors have early Proofs, in effect more happily mysterious, though in work more simple, than the published States. The foreground darker, less defined, and — among other details — the cow not introduced. Mr. Theobald's first Proof, most rich and velvety, is marked in pencil, ' Worked up to this state in one night, from half-past ten till five in the morning.' Very soon after, too much light was introduced, and the plate — which is never fascinating — was thus made wholly unattractive. First Published State. Open letter. Second Published State. The lettering strengthened. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line (date 1 831) removed. 5f X7£. 10. — YARMOUTH, NORFOLK.— The beach and the long wooden pier of Yarmouth, Norfolk, and a freshen- ing sea, under a sunlit sky of breezy, showery weather. Small coasting boats, with sails spread, out at sea to the right, and behind the pier-head to the left. A man-o'-war in the distance. The British Museum has a Proof, very broad in effect, and marked by Constable as 'The first I received.' The man-o'-war is mastless ; there are no boats about the pier, and the pier is in a solid mass, suggesting stone — not wood. Mr. Theobald has a Proof with these things altered, but as yet without the two figures in the foreground at the water's edge. Mr. Home and I have Proofs with these two figures, but before certain lights were picked out on the near waters — the effect still broad and rich. A quite finished Proof — already losing some unity and richness — has the lights described picked out, and apparently some further work in the sky. First Published State. With open-letter title. It is, in a chosen impression, still desirable, although inferior to the Proofs before the latest work. Partly by accident or wear — partly, perhaps, by intention — the effect has become a different one. Second Published State. The Title strengthened. Third Published State. Bonn's : with publication line (date 1832) removed. 5!x8f. 11. — A SEA BEACH. A bit of steep sea-shore — it is at Brighton — and beached boats with one or two sails partly set. A tumbling sea, and surf, and a sky of windy sun- shine. Under the shelter of the lugger in the foreground, a fisherman mends nets, or busies himself at a small boat. Two or three figures in the distance, at the water's edge. Mr. Theobald has perhaps the earliest Proof taken — with no definition whatever of the wooden groin, just indicated on the beach, and before the little boats on the horizon, to the left. Another early Proof, with Constable's name on the beached boat, and with the figures very little defined. Another Trial Proof, the effect massive and rich ; the name removed. In absolutely Finished Proofs — as in the published States — the fisherman's right forearm, before then slightly lifted, is slightly lowered, and there is extra work, like tags, on the square sail. The general richness of effect now somewhat lessened ; though the plate remains breezy and pleasant, with its fresh, tumbling sea. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. Title strengthened. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line (date 1830) removed. 5x8|. 12 —MILL-STREAM. A gabled cottage to the left ; to the right a man with a fishing-rod ; and the waters of a mill-stream fill the centre of the composition, and in mid-distance catch the sunlight, and disappear between dark graceful trees. Two or three very early Proofs ; the trees that meet over 39 the mill-stream are one massive darkness, and there are but few lights picked out in front upon the water. Then Proofs with the trees lightened a little — giving more form, though yet simple. Then, additional light, and movement of the water, in front. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. With the additional strokes in the lettering. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line (date 1 831) removed. 5£x7£. 13.— A LOCK ON THE STOUR, SUFFOLK. The broad stream of the Stour in mid-distance, with a farm- house on gently rising ground beyond it, near the point at which it is crossed by a wooden bridge. A lock in the foreground, and two seated figures just this side the stream, at the edge of which a poplar waves and rustles, in spark- ling, pleasant, but not yet certain weather. * I like it exceedingly,' wrote Constable. Fine Trial Proofs of this subject are particularly rare. Mr. Theobald and Mr. Home have very early Proofs ; the sky too uniformly dark ; the poplar on the right very formless, but other objects a good deal defined and illuminated. Later, there are one or two most brilliant Proofs, with all essentials finished, but before any birds, and before any figure in the boat on the far side of the stream. First Published State. With open-letter title, and the words < Co. of before « Suffolk '—either distinctly legible or faintly visible. Scarce. Second Published State. The space in which < Co. of appeared more or less plainly is now absolutely blank. Third Published State. The blank space filled up by re- arrangement of the type, so that the word < Suffolk ' now follows closely the word < Stour.' When printed upon smoother, limper paper than the French, the impressions of the State preceding Bohn's weak things — and not of this Plate only — are apt to be both late and poor. Fourth Published State. Bohn's : with publication line and date (1831) removed. 51x7. 40 14 —OLD SARUM. A shepherd in the foreground ; and, in middle distance — desolate, formless, in a desolate plain — the mound of Old Sarum. One gleam of light, stretching along the_side of it, lifts itself against the curtain of the sky, black mostly, but breaking into brilliance towards an upper corner. * The Old Sarum is perfect,' wrote Constable, January 19, 1830, * and might be printing, to save time.' Early and rich Engraver's Proofs — of course very rare — should show ' Old Sarum ' faintly scratched under the subject. In later ones, that is removed, and the sky is less powerful — the effect less majestic. First Published State. With open-letter title, and the date * 1830.' It may still be very fine. Second Published State. Title strengthened. Third Published State. The publication date changed to 1832, and there is a flock of sheep just behind the shepherd. Fourth Published State. There is added, as a quotation from St. Paul, * Here we have no continuing city.'' Fifth Published State. Bohn's : with publication line removed. 5|x8£. 15.— A SUMMERLAND. The foreground is an upland field ; a man ploughing in the middle. Behind him, to right and to left — stretching across the picture — ■ is a massive and dark woodland, broken into half lights here and there along its course. Behind and below the dark stretch of woodland is a wide valley, and in the distance to the left the ground slightly rises. The sky, quiet at the horizon, though shot with rays of light, has above these a belt of rolling cloud, which is illuminated brilliantly. The British Museum has a Proor, with sky pale and unmeaning. There is a slight rainbow. Mr. Theobald has an early Proof with the sky little defined to the right. The British Museum has a Proof with sky more worked, though the rays are still but slightly indicated, and one with the sky wrought fully, and on a field to the left there are two cows to connect those in the meadow in front with those in the meadow behind. * I have taken,' f 4 i says Constable, * much pains with the last Proof of the Summer land. 1 First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. The title strengthened. Third Published State. Bonn's : with publication line and date removed. 5£x8f. 16. — STOKE BY NEYLAND, SUFFOLK. The noble, Fifteenth-century church of Stoke by Neyland — in a tract of light — stretches its length on the left side of the picture — a white gabled house below it, and a rainbow above. It is seen across meadows, with a stile in the foreground. To the right there are trees, heavy with foliage — a woodland way — and, in front, against the darkness of their shadows, a sheaf-bearing figure. In the earliest, rarest Trial Proofs, of extraordinary force- some two or three at the most, probably — the church has only its tower, and no nave. The Proofs next following have the nave added, but its detail little defined. Then, Proofs with the church — its parapet, &c. — more defined ; the rainbow introduced, and birds, and a figure at the stile. In the quite finished Engraver's or Trial Proofs a little cross is over the west end of the church. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. The title strengthened. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line and date, * 1830,' removed. 5fx8|. 17. — A MILL. The scene is chiefly dark, though there is a passage of light in the sky — cloud-encompassed — on flat meadows and the stream. The water-mill, with black trees to the side of it, is to the left. To the right, formless trees ; and, in the centre, against some lightness in the sky, there rise the forms of poplars. The British Museum and Mr. Theobald have early Proofs with the water-mill and its wheel very formless. There are then Proofs with these objects defined, and the dark things rising into the sky, in the middle of the picture, are more visibly poplars. 42 i<3» At. First Published State. With open-letter title, and the publication date, 4 1830.' Second Published State. The date altered to * 1832/ and a man with a tall hat and a fishing-rod near the left, and - a church tower near the poplars. e>U-w* cA Third Published State. Bonn's : with publication line and date removed. 5fx8f. / \ja -*-* c-^'» O *w 18. — WEYMOUTH BAY, DORSETSHIRE. The curve of a great Bay, with cliff in the foreground, and hills behind the Bay. The sky — over the sea especially — is massive darkness ; but above the hills it is broken into passages of wreathed cloud, rain-storm, and brilliant light. No sky of Constable's is more dramatic or alive, or more completely the sky of the particular hour. * On that spot,' says Constable, • perished Wordsworth's brother in the wreck of the Abergavenny.' And 4 1 think of the poet : The sea in anger, and that dismal shore.' Mr. Theobald and I have early Proofs with those little feathery twirls of light cloud over the low hill which were afterwards elongated and continuous. Mr. Home has a Proof touched for the prolongation of the cloud over the hill. And there are Proofs with the sharp lines of a shower against the whiteness of the sky to the right. At last, birds are introduced, over the blackness of the sky to the left. First Published State. With open-letter title, and the shower already more faintly indicated, through the wear- ing of the most delicate portions of a plate which is still in the main effective, and indeed, in chosen impressions, printed not too blackly, still admirable. Second Published State. The title re-engraved, smaller. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line and date, * 1 830,' removed. 51x7*. 19. — SUMMER AFTERNOON — AFTER A SHOWER. Sunlight has just succeeded to rain, and the steep Down, with cattle and a windmill, glistens in the changing light. At no great distance, to the left, a 43 church spire rises against what is still blackness in the sky. Much nearer, in the left foreground, a man on a white horse jogs slowly along the land. Mr. Home has an early Trial Proof, rich and interesting, but not yet representative of sunshine after a shower. He has a second, drawn upon for alterations. A third Proof of his, shows serviceable alterations made — the sloping Down in the right foreground is greatly lightened ; the darkness of the sky is now almost confined to clouds on the horizon to the left — the effect concentrated. In the Finished Proofs — after which this plate generally ceases to be desirable, the effect being muddled — a cow- herd or a husbandman crosses the Down. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. The title strengthened. Third Published State. Bonn's : with publication line and date, 4 1831/ removed. 5fx7|. 20.— THE GLEBE FARM. Looking along a valley, with water in the foreground and a cow drinking. A retired scene. Tall trees rise to the left. At a slight elevation on the right — not very distant — are a gabled house and a church tower, with trees above them. An evening sky, with clouds not immediately threatening. The British Museum and Mr. Theobald have early Proofs, before the action of the cow to the right is properly expressed. Its head bends low against its fore- feet. Mr. Home has a Proof with the cow's head placed rightly — drinking — but, as yet, no man near the top of the little plank bridge ; and the effect remains unusually rich — not having been broken up with endless detail. In Proofs finished, or over-finished (of which Constable disapproved), no concentration of effect remains — all is scattered and detailed. Yet this, it seems, was not the only plate made for the subject. Another, used eventually for Castle Acre Priory y was started, it is said, for the Glebe Farm. First Published State. 'With open-letter title. Second Published State. The title strengthened. Third Published State. Bohn's : with publication line and date, * 1832,' removed. 5f x8£. 44 21.— HADLEIGH CASTLE, NEAR THE NORE. To the left the ruins of Hadleigh Castle— two round towers, broken. The middle of the picture is a land that slopes towards the shore ; and further on the right, and in the distance, is a broad water— the Estuary of the Thames. Stormy clouds. One or two very early Proofs with sky all black. Then, with the sky more defined, but very stormy ; the whole massive and impressive, and, as yet, with no detail in the foreground. There are then finished impressions, with a gull added in front — about an inch from the bottom of the picture. First Published State. With open-letter title. Second Published State. Title strengthened. Third Published State. Bonn's : with publication line and date, * 1832/ removed. 6x9. 22.— HAMPSTEAD HEATH, MIDDLESEX. A near view of the Heath, or of that part of it that rises straight in front of us. It slopes away to the left, allowing there a vision of the distant horizon and of the Dome of St. Paul's. In mid-distance, a man seated upon the ridge of the Heath. The sky, light towards St. Paul's, is elsewhere dark and rolling, save where, at the right corner, there is the brilliant indication of a rainbow. This is the Tailpiece— 4 The Vignette,' as it is called, though it is not vignetted. It closes worthily the Set of * English Landscape.' The group of Trial or or Engraver's Proofs is particularly interesting : even the first that I have noted are in no sense immature — the work, though simpler in subject, being profoundly artistic. Indeed, as desirable as any Proofs are those most rare ones before the donkey, before the rainbow, before the water to the left, and before St. Paul's in the distance — and I may add that in them the man, who sits alone upon the ridge of the Heath, wears his hat lower behind than in front. (He was sketched from W. Collins, the artist.) Next, the figure is changed, and the donkey is added. Then the plate is worked upon nearly half an 'inch higher— thus showing more sky. The rainbow is added, and, in one Proof, of Mr. Theobald's, 45 there is a church in the distance — it is not yet St. Paul's. The final Proofs reveal the Dome of the Cathedral. First Published State. The word 1 Heath ' in the title is omitted. Scarce. Second Published State. With full title ; and above the picture, in old English characters, * Vignette to Mr. Con- stable's English Landscape,' &c. Still generally good. And it will be noted with satisfaction that there is no Bohn issue of this plate. 23.— PORCH OF THE CHURCH AT EAST BERGHOLT, SUFFOLK. The churchyard, with gravestones in the foreground, and, sitting amongst them, an old, bare-headed man, a woman, and a girl. The Church Porch is to the right. A placid sky, and the view, solemn and peaceful, limited by trees. This is the first in the List of Fourteen Plates announced by Lucas, soon after Constable's death, as to be * published by the Engraver, at 27 Westbourne Street, Eaton Square, Pimlico,' and extending to No. 36 in the present Cata- logue. In this Series, the impressions before all letters are the best ones ; and they are generally finished. The j South Kensington Museum has Mr. Sheepshanks's Set — the finest that I know. But of the First Published State — with Lucas's publication line — not many can have been issued ; so that where the impressions in that State fail much in quality, I put it down chiefly to the em- ployment of a paper absorbent and not fibrous. Similarly disadvantageous paper was used habitually in the later printings of nearly every piece I catalogue. Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bohn's issue. 7|x*J. 24.— GILLINGHAM MILL, DORSETSHIRE. Waterside herbage to the front, partly hiding the mill- wheel. A willow rising against the gable of the mill. Two men to the right. Proofs before all letters. 46 First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bonn's. 7£x6. 25. — SIR RICHARD STEELE'S COTTAGE. The cottage to the right, and to the left a taller house, and poplars. A coach descends the hill towards London. In the distance, the dome of St. Paul's. Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bonn's. 5}x7*. 26. — JACQUES AND THE WOUNDED STAG. A stream, passing through woodland. Jacques reclines in the foreground, and surveys the stag who is on the other side of the water. Proofs before all letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bohn's. 5ix7J. 27 . —CORNFIELDS NEAR BRIGHTON. Looking along a cornfield, at the end of which, under a line of Down, stand a windmill and the buildings of a farm. A delicate sky, although stormy. The print is generally thin and ineffective ; but I have seen two or three fine impressions. Proofs before all letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second State. Bohn's. 5|x7£. 28 . — STONEHENGE. The vast stones, lifted against the sky — in which there is a crescent moon— are seen near the parting of two roads that cross the plain. Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's. Second Published State. Bohn's. 5£x7f. 29.— WILLY LOTT'S HOUSE. The little gabled house, close to the water's edge, stands on the left. In middle distance, in the centre of the picture, a great leafy tree. To the right, a horse and horseman — the horse watering. Proofs before all letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bonn's. 6|x6. 30.— A COTTAGE IN A CORNFIELD. A five- barred gate and palings divide the fore-ground from a field, on which, and on a cottage at the further side of it, the sun shines pleasantly. Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second State. Bonn's. 31.— HAMPSTEAD HEATH ; HARROW IN THE DISTANCE. An open country — which is the West Heath — falls towards a line of trees ; then flat, then slightly rising ground, with a hill on the left that is Harrow. Mr. Home has an early Trial Proof with no work what- ever in the upper portion of the sky. Proofs before all letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bohn's. 5| x 7. 32.— FLATFORD MILL. In front, a boy on a black horse, two or three riven trees, and a wide meadow. Water with barges to the left : the Mill quite in the distance. Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bohn's. 5|x7. 48 33. — CASTLE ACRE PRIORY. The ruined Priory fills the middle distance. A glade to the left, and to the right a pool that a cow approaches. « Shadowy and theatrical,' Mr. C. J. Holmes well calls it. This applies to the Finished State. See No. 20. One or two Collectors have Proofs with a square tower ; no cow ; and the plate not worked at all at the right end. Then Finished Proofs. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bohn's. 6x9. 34. — VIEW ON THE ORWELL, NEAR IPSWICH. A great boat at the water's edge, heeling over towards the stream, fills the centre of the picture; a group of sailors to the left, against a luminous sky ; to the right, a rowing-boat, and behind it a windmill. Dark clouds behind the white sail of the great boat. This piece — certainly at its best fine as an engraving — would have been in the 'English Landscape,' but that Constable considered 'the ships too commonplace and vulgar : they will never unite with the general character of the book. Though I want variety I don't want hotch- potch.' An early Proof in the most really desirable state, with the windmill in the distance about an inch and a half from the edge of the print, and with the rowing-boat underneath it nearly two inches long. Then there is a Proof with a different windmill introduced, only half an inch from the edge, and the boat is an inch and a quarter long. In this, the effect of distance and storm remains more or less fine. In the next Proofs, the right-hand man in the group of sailors carries a long oar. The plate has further deteriorated. First Published State. Lucas's. Second Published State. Bohn's. 5|x7. 35. _WINDMILL NEAR COLCHESTER. Cottages and a windmill to the left. To the right, on ground rather lower, a cottage roof, and then the indication of some sloping fields. g 49 Proofs before letters. First Published State. Lucas's. Second Published State. Bohn's. 36. — ARUNDEL MILL AND CASTLE. The mill across the water ; the castle in the distance, on a height. They are seen from the low ground on the near side of the stream. A willow to the left. On the right a large tree, with boughs curiously intertwined. This plate — pretty enough, but frittered in its effect by petty detail — is the last in the List of Fourteen issued by Lucas, after Constable's death. There are Proofs before the birds. First Published State. Lucas's publication. Second Published State. Bonn's. 5fx7|, 37. — A MILL NEAR BRIGHTON. It is a wind- mill, standing brilliantly illuminated in the centre of the picture — with woodland near to it, and behind it a sky black at the horizon, though lit with white clouds above. On a path in the left lower corner, a woman's figure. This is the first of the little group — extending to No. 41 — known to collectors as * unpublished,' because impres- sions — generally — were not available until the worthless issue of Bohn. The British Museum and Mr. Theobald and I, and perhaps one or two other collectors, have rich Proofs in which there is but one window clearly visible on that side of the Mill on which the high light falls, and the transition from sky to foliage on the right is undefined. There are, later, a few Proofs quite finished, save for the addition of three birds on the left. First Published State. With title and Moon's publi- cation line, * 1838.' Second State. Publication line removed. Bohn's issue. 5fx4|. 38.— VIEW ON THE RIVER STOUR. The river stretches from left to right of the picture. A white 5° horse is on a barge. Beyond the water is a boat-house, behind which are farm buildings and trees. The British Museum has one fine Proof— brilliant and rich — on old tough paper. In its other Proofs the work does not appear to have been altered, but the plate quickly deteriorated — probably by rusting. Proofs before letters. First Published State. With title, artists' names, and F. G. Moon's publication line. Second Published State. The publication line removed. Bohn's. 5§x7J. 39. — HAMPSTEAD HEATH WITH BATHERS. A broken country with sheep and shepherd in the left foreground ; two waggons to the right ; in the middle distance a pool with bathers, and, far off, a rainy sky. Proofs before all letters. Published State. Bohn's poor issue. 40. — SALISBURY. A fisherman sitting in the fore- ground, by a bend of the river. Tall trees dark to the left ; and at no great distance the stately fabric of the Cathedral rises above the willows by the stream and above such larger trees as are behind them. To the right, a water meadow, skirted by trees. Two or three very rich Proofs before the slanting lines that indicate the driving shower, and with the west front of the Cathedral wholly in shadow and the spire un- defined. Then, two or three very brilliant Proofs showing the slanting rain, the spire more tapering, and the upper part of the west front no longer shadowed. Later, a double rainbow is introduced, and most of the west front of the Cathedral is seen in light ; but the effect is now frittered and wrong — the plate is * finished,' but spoilt ; a wreck already, as Constable well knew. First Published State. With title and Moon's publication line, 4 1838.' Second State. Publication line removed. Bohn's issue. 5Jx8|. 5 1 41.— OPENING OF WATERLOO BRIDGE. On the left, a tall, bow-fronted house faces the River. The balconies are peopled ; and on the water a pageant is in progress. In the distance, Waterloo Bridge, the Shot Tower, and St. Paul's. The early and rich Proofs have only one window on the lighter side of the house that stands between trees, and they have the top of a post, quite to the front, in the water. Then the post is removed, the water and the whole plate greatly lightened, and the second window introduced. In yet later impressions without letters — which cannot be accounted desirable Proofs — there is smoke from a chimney at the extreme right, and on the left a slender tree trunk is seen nearly prone on the ground. In this plate, only the dark Early Proofs are at all fine. The Published State is Bonn's — after the plate had suffered irretrievably. 5|x8f. 42.— THE APPROACHING STORM. There is a river in the foreground on which light falls strongly. The sky is of gathering cloud. This is the first of a few quite small plates, ending with No. 46. The only ones in any way connected are Nos. 42 and 43. Published State. With the publication line of Hollyer, 4 1829.' 3x4f. 43. — THE DEPARTING STORM. An open country, with a rainbow piercing the clouds of a wild sky. Published State. With the publication line of Hollyer, < 1829/ 3x4f. 44. — A SHOWER. Upland fields, with a group of trees, dark under a cloudy and wind-blown sky. On the Museum Proof— dull and doubtless unfinished — is written, * Unpublished. Only two Proofs printed.' 3x4. 45. — SPRING (No. 2). A small, thin rendering of the subject made famous by No. 2. There are Proofs before letters. The Published State bears the publication line of Long- mans, * 1845,' and appeared in, and was probably done for, the Second Edition of Leslie's 4 Life of Constable.' 3x5f 46.— A COTTAGE IN A CORNFIELD (No. 2). The subject, that of No. 30, and, more or less, of the large Cornfield. It is said to have been done only to indicate to Constable what one or other of these would be ; and, as of course it was never published, five or six bright little Proofs are probably all that exist of it. 2ixlf. 47.— THE LOCK. The Lock is in the foreground ; a boat to the right, and above it, trees that a breeze catches. In middle distance, a flat meadow, beyond which is Dedham Church tower. First Published State. With the names of the artists and the publication line of 'June 1834, by F. G. Moon,' and others. Second Published State. With Moon's Dedication to the Royal Academy, and the date altered to ' July.' Third Published State. The Dedication is now signed by Thomas Boys, and the plate described as * republished 1 by him, « Feb. 5, 1853.' 22|xl9|. 48.— THE CORNFIELD. Masses of woodland sur- round and frame the cornfield, which is in the centre of the picture. In the foreground, a boy bends to a stream, and drinks from it, and there are sheep and a sheep-dog on the country road. First Published State. With the names of Artist and Engraver, and the inscription 'London. Published June 2nd, 1834, by F. G. Moon, 20 Threadneedle Street, T. Maclean, Haymarket, and Hodgson, Boys and Graves, Pall Mall.' 53 Second Published State. With Moon's Dedication to the Royal Academy, and with the name of C. Tilt and R. Ackermann added to the previous list of publishers, and the date altered to July. Third Published State. The Dedication is now signed by Thomas Boys, and the Plate is described as 1 republished ' by him : * Feb. 5, 1853.' 22f x 19f . 49.— DEDHAM VALE. On the right, tall trees, and in the shadowed foreground a woman at a gipsy fire. Beyond, there is the winding of the stream past many meadows, and a church tower in the distance. Mr. Gooden has an Engraver's Proof, advanced and interesting. First Published State. The rare one, with the publication line of Hollyer. Second Published State. After the purchase of the Plate by the Art Union of London, whose publication line it now bears. 23 x 194. 50.— THE RAINBOW, SALISBURY. The subject is practically that of the Salisbury in the ' Landscape.' There are very rare Proofs, before what seems a low church tower at the extreme left of the picture, and before the man in middle distance and the birds above him. Then Proofs with the low tower, but no man. Then with the man, but, as yet, no birds above him. First Published State. With Constable's name in etched letters in one corner, and Lucas's in the other. Second Published State. With artists' names printed, the publication line of ' Hodgson & Graves, 1837,' and to the right a scratched title, 'The Rainbow, Salisbury Cathedral.' Third Published State. To cover a flaw in the Plate — which has being getting worse — another bird is in- troduced. Fourth State. Gambart's — with date ' 1854.' 21f x27. 54 51. — YOUNG WALTONIANS. From a bank in the oreground, boys are fishing in a placid stream. A water- wheel is to the extreme left, and beyond the stream there is woodland. First Published State. The very rare one, with the lightly scratched title, ' River Stour,' the names of artists, and * published by the Engraver, 1840.' Second Published State. With the title, ' Young Wal- tonians.' Third Published State. With { Dedicated to every lover of angling.' llf Xl6|. 52. — HADLEIGH CASTLE (No. 2). The subject is that of the smaller print in the 4 English Landscape.' In composition of line neither seems to me excellent ; but in both, in fine impressions, the aerial perspective is remark- able. In this larger print, the sky, though stormy, is more luminous and open ; the foreground is generally less dark ; and there is a flight of birds about the Castle tower. This was the first print ever * declared ' by the Printsellers' Association. It was published by Graves, in 1849. First Published State. Called 'Artist's Proofs.' The number declared was only Twenty-five. Second Published State. Called * before letters ' — a term which applies equally to the First State. The number was again but twenty-five. Third Published State. Called * the Print State.' With title, Graves's publication line, &c. 10fxl4|. 55 POSTSCRIPT. My debt to Mr. Theobald, K.C.,for free access to, and free use of his store of letters between Constable and Lucas, has already been named. But in closing my labours on a little book which even the excellent and recent works of Lord Windsor and of Mr. C. J. Holmes — dealing with Constable generally — have not rendered superfluous, I wish to express, also, my thanks to Mr. Percy Home, whose fine collection is often here referred to ; to Mr. Clough ; and to the Messrs. Leggatt, Messrs. Gooden and Fox, Mr. Rimell of Shaftesbury Avenue, and Mr. Ward of Richmond, for various information willingly given. F. W. London, November 1904. 56 INDEX. No. Approaching Storm, The . . .42 Arundel Mill and Castle 36 Autumnal Sunset . Castle Acre Priory Cornfield, The . Cornfields near Brighton Cottage in a Cornfield Cottage in a Cornfield No. 2 Dedham Vale Dell, Helmingham Park A . Departing Storm, The East Bergholt, Suffolk Flatford Mill Gillingham Mill, Dor- setshire . Glebe Farm, The . 33 48 27 3o 46 49 9 43 32 24 20 Hadleigh Castle Hadleigh Castle. No. 2 52 Hampstead Heath, Har- row in Distance Hampstead Heath, Mid- dlesex Hampstead Heath, with Bathers Heath, A Jacques and Wounded Stag Lock, The . Lock on the Stour Mill, A 21 31 22 39 the A 26 47 13 17 Mill near Brighton Mill Stream . Noon . No. 37 12 4 14 Old Sarum . Opening of Waterloo Bridge . . .41 Porch of the Church at East Bergholt . 23 Rainbow, The (Salis- bury) . . '5° River Stour, Suffolk . 5 Salisbury . . .40 Sea Beach, A (Brighton) 1 1 Shower, A . . -44 Sir Richard Steele's Cot- tage . . .25 Spring .... 2 Spring. No. 2 -45 Stoke by Neyland, Suffolk 16 Stonehenge . . .28 Summer Afternoon . 19 Summer Morning . . 6 Summer Evening . . 7 Summerland, A . . 1 5 View on the Orwell, near Ipswich . . 34 View on the River Stour 38 Weymouth Bay, Dorset- shire . . .18 Willy Lott's House . 29 Windmill near Col- chester . . • 3S Yarmouth, Norfolk . 10 Young Waltonians . 5 1 h 57 OTHER WORKS BY MR. WEDMORE. CRITICAL. Meryon : With a Descriptive Catalogue of the Artist's Work. Second Edition. Whistler's Etchings : A Study and a Catalogue. Second Edition. Fine Prints. On Books and Arts. Balzac. (< Great Writers * Series.) IMAGINATIVE. Pastorals of France. Fourth Edition. * In their simplicity, their tenderness, and their fidelity, " Pastorals of France " are almost perfect.' — Spectator. * " Pastorals of France " may be said to have revealed not only a new talent, but a new literary genre* — Sir George Douglas in the Bookman. Renunciations. Third Edition. With Portrait by J. J. Shannon, A.R.A. 'The sketch of Richard Pelse, the chemist, in "Renunciations," is a pure joy. The story of his life is told with a power not unworthy of the hand that drew for us the lonely old age of M. Parent.' — H. D. Traill in the New Review. 'The picture of Richard Pelse, with his one moment of romance, is exquisite.' — St. James's Gazette. English Episodes. Second Edition. ' Mr. Wedmore has gained for himself an enviable reputation. He has a place of his own among successful writers of the short story. He has the poet's secret. He is a realist who finds it possible not to report ill of Humanity.' — Saturday Review. ' Mr. Wedmore is a singularly fine and sane and carefully deliberate artist.' — Westminster Gazette. Orgeas and Miradou : with Other Pieces. ' In " Orgeas and Miradou " there is nothing less than divination.' — Athenaum. The Collapse of the Penitent. Second Edition. 1 To call this book clever would be altogether to underrate it.' — The Times. 59 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. London 6* Edinburgh GETTY CENTER LIBRA |||| 'f lfSPS)146 4714