Stratford Saint Mary from the Coombs

c. 1800

Returning home after his first year at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Constable found inspiration in the rolling hills and shallow valleys (or coombs) around Stratford Saint Mary. He painted the village’s landmarks—the mill and the fifteenth-century church—in simple forms and applied washes of thinned oil paint to convey the sky’s glow and the reflective surface of the River Stour.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	19 1/8 x 25 5/8 in. (48.5 x 65.1 cm)
Object Number	2007.8.9
Acquisition	Gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007
Status	On View

Image Caption

John Constable, Stratford Saint Mary from the Coombs, c. 1800, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007.8.9

Select Bibliography

Belsey, Hugh, ed. From Gainsborough to Constable: The Emergence of Naturalism in British Landscape Painting 1750-1810. Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, August 17-October 13, 1991; The Leger Galleries, London, November 14-December 4, 1991. Sudbury, Suffolk: Gainsborough's House Society. 1991. Reynolds, Graham. The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable. 2 vol. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1996. 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

Thomas Churchyard (possibly his sale, B. Moulton, Woodbridge, 26 Mar. 1866, no. 67, as View at Dedham, sold to Pearce);¹ The Shipping Federation, London, given to Devitt, 1914; Sir Thomas Land Devitt (1914–d. 1923); Miss Devitt, his daughter, by descent (from 1923); private collection; sale, Sotheby’s, London, 20 Nov. 1985, no. 82; Elmerside Ltd.; private collection, England; [Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, sold to Manton, 9 June 1999]; Sir Edwin A. G. Manton, New York (1999–d. 2005); Manton Family Art Foundation (2005–7, given to the Clark); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007. 1. The painting was offered for sale at Christie’s, London, 5 July 1862, no. 110, as The Village of Stratford, but was bought in.