Cloud Study

c. 1850

Once thought to have been painted by John Constable, this sketch was later attributed to his son. The artist experiments with color in this atmospheric study, using gray, blue, and white pigments to indicate rain clouds gathering ominously above the thin strip of land visible along the bottom edge of the image.

Medium	oil on beige wove paper, mounted on wood-pulp board, mounted on panel
Dimensions	Sheet: 9 1/4 x 11 13/16 in. (23.5 x 30 cm) Panel: 9 5/8 x 12 3/16 in. (24.5 x 31 cm)
Object Number	2007.8.60
Acquisition	Gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007
Status	On View

Image Caption

Lionel Bicknell Constable, Cloud Study, c. 1850, oil on beige wove paper, mounted on wood-pulp board, mounted on panel. Clark Art Institute, gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007.8.60

Select Bibliography

Leggatt's. Pictures & Water-Colour Drawings by John Constable, R.A.. November 1899. London: Leggatt's. 1899. Parris, Leslie. Constable: A New York Private Collection. Supplement. New York: Published privately, 1998. Clarke, Jay, ed. Landscape, Innovation, and Nostalgia: The Manton Collection of British Art. Williamstown, MA: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2012. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

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Provenance

Hugh Golding Constable, the artist’s nephew, by descent, sold to Leggatt’s, 1899; [Leggatt’s, London]; Mr. Waldron; G. B. Homewood; private collection; sale Christie’s, London, 18 Apr. 1986, no. 60, as Attributed to John Constable; Raymond Needler; sale Sotheby’s, London, 13 Nov. 1996, no. 100, as by Lionel Constable, sold to Ackermann & Johnson; [Ackermann & Johnson, London, sold to Manton, 25 Nov. 1996]; Sir Edwin A. G. Manton, New York (1996–d. 2005); Manton Family Art Foundation (2005–7, given to the Clark); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007.