Sandbanks and a Cart and Horses on Hampstead Heath

c. 1820–25

Beginning in 1819, Constable and his family spent several summers in Hampstead to escape London’s heat and pollution. The Hampstead landscape was admired by poets and artists alike, and the suburb also boasted a spectacular view of the city. Constable’s picture alludes to the industrial economy of this rural retreat: the wagon winding its way into the distance on the right is probably hauling local sand off to a factory, where it would have been used to make bricks and cast iron.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	7 3/4 x 10 in. (19.7 x 25.4 cm)
Object Number	2007.8.37
Acquisition	Gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007
Status	On View

Image Caption

John Constable, Sandbanks and a Cart and Horses on Hampstead Heath, c. 1820–25, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007.8.37

Select Bibliography

Grosvenor Gallery. A Century of British Art from 1737 to 1837. Summer 1889. London: Grosvenor Gallery. 1889. Pionk, Richard C. and Margaret Somers. Constable. Salmagundi Club, October 14 - November 2, 2000. New York, Salmagundi Club. 2000. Parris, Leslie. Constable: A New York Private Collection. Supplement. New York: Published privately, 1998. Steiner, Raymond J. "John Constable at the Salmagundi Club." Art Times. Vol. 17.4. November 2000: 9. 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

Charles Golding Constable, the artist’s son, by descent (d. 1879); Anna Maria Blundell Constable, his wife (1879–87, Constable estate sale, Christie’s, London, 11 July 1887, no. 73, as View at Hampstead, with a cart and horses, sold to Permain);¹ Permain (from 1887); James Orrock (by 1888, his sale, Christie’s, London, 27 Apr. 1895, no. 276, as Gravel Pits, sold to Radcliffe); Radcliffe (from 1895); Mrs. Michaels (in 1955); [Simon Dickinson, Ltd., London, sold to Thune]; Richard M. Thune, New York, sold to Leger; [Leger Galleries, London, sold to Manton, 18 Oct. 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. 1. From 1880 to 1883, Mrs. A. M. Constable lent this painting to the South Kensington Museum, London (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), with the title Sketch at Hampstead, with a Cart and Horses. From 1883 to 1887, it was similarly on loan to the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art (now the National Museum of Scotland).