RÉSIDENCE # 06/04 (ENG)

St Peter’s Church Sudbury, by John Constable
Gainsborough’s House
Sudbury, UK
gainsborough.org

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John Constable (1776-1837), St Peter’s Church Sudbury from the South East, Circa 1814-1815.
Ink and graphite on paper, 16.3×14.3 cm.
Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury. 1994.146 © Gainsborough’s House.

Text : Mahaut de La Motte-Broöns, Assistant Curator, Gainsborough’s House.

The church depicted in this drawing by John Constable is St Peter’s Church, one of the three parochial churches of Sudbury. Constable was born in East Bergholt, in the same region as Gainsborough but closer to the sea. He admired his fellow countryman and researched his artistic legacy in their native Suffolk. His uncle owned Cornard Wood, a painting of a forest just outside of Sudbury now in the National Gallery collection. Constable was certainly aware that Gainsborough’s birthplace is located less than half-a-mile from the church he was drawing. He met several local artists who knew Gainsborough and collected his drawings like the Ipswich artist George Frost whose drawings after Gainsborough have sometimes been identified as authentic Gainsborough. Constable went on several drawing excursions with Frost. Constable himself acquired Gainsborough drawings. He also found a plaster cast of a horse in an antique dealer shop which was made by Gainsborough as studio tool for his landscapes. The horse is currently on display at Gainsborough’s House (on loan from the Constable family).