northwards from Hampstead Heath, where clouds flushed with warm sunlight sail gently over an expanse of silvery blue. The first of his large pictures, The White Horse, was exhibited at the Academy in 1819, and bought by Archdeacon Fisher. Constable's price was one hundred guineas, exclusive of the frame. In 1894 the picture fetched 6200 guineas. The composition is engraved by Lucas, but it cannot be regarded as one of his happiest efforts, though the great reduction in scale may perhaps be in part responsible for the worried look of the mezzotint. The little studies in oil of The West End of Bergholt Church, and On the Stour near Dedham, will serve as examples of the force and solidity with which Constable was working at this time.
His originality, if not his merit, now received some formal recognition, for at the close of the year 1819 he was elected to the Associateship of the Academy. For the Academy of 1820 he contributed the magnificent picture of Stratford Mill, of which Arch-deacon Fisher again was the purchaser, at the price of one hundred guineas. At the Huth sale it fetched 8500 guineas. There is a good mezzotint of it by Lucas, on a large scale. Its companion in the 1820 Exhibition was the Harwich Lighthouse, now in the Tate Gallery. The Stratford Mill is so brilliant and powerful a work that it is hard to realize that the sober and heavy Dedham Mill at Kensington dates from the same year. The traces of Dutch technique seem to indicate that this latter picture must have been started at least four or five years earlier.
Some of Constable's best-known sketches were executed about this time. The noble mezzotints of Lucas have familiarized us with the desolate Old Sarum, the tremendous Weymouth Bay (perhaps identical with his Osmington Shore, exhibited at the British Gallery in 1819), and the solemn Willy Lott's Cottage. This last study illustrates admirably how much Constable could do with the simplest materials. The cottage itself still stands by the Stour just below Flatford Mill. It was used by the painter over and over again not only in small sketches but in large pictures, such as The Haywain and The Valley Farm. Willy Lott, after whom it is now named, lies buried in Bergholt churchyard, where his epitaph, recording that he lived all his eighty-eight years in the house, calls it Gibeon's Farm. The Haywain, now in the National Gallery, was exhibited in 1821 under the title of "Landscape: Noon," but remained unsold.
17
