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Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds

1825-26

John Constable

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As recorded in the entry for No. 31, Bishop Fisher saw the open-air sketch that Constable had made in 1820 of Salisbury Cathedral as it appeared from the grounds of the bishop's palace, and commissioned him to finish it for exhibition at the Royal Academy. Rather than work any further on his sketch, Constable chose to paint a slightly larger version. With difficulty he completed this for the Academy exhibition of 1823; it is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The bishop approved of the composition and its topographical accuracy, but never of the rain clouds that Constable had observed when making the sketch and transferred emphatically to the exhibited picture. Accordingly, when in 1823 the bishop commissioned a smaller replica (now in the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino) as a wedding present for his daughter Elizabeth, he asked Constable to put it "into a little sunshine." Dr. Fisher's continuing dissatisfaction with the first finished version led him to return it to Constable for. a similar lightening of the atmosphere and a "more serene sky. " Constable chose to paint him an entirely new version, with a lighter sky and thinned-out trees, no longer meeting in an arch above the cathedral spire. The bishop, who died on June 25, 1825, did not live to receive this picture, which was delivered to his widow in 1826; it is now in the Frick Collection, New York. When making these later versions, Constable had some help in laying in the outlines from his studio assistant John Dunthorne junior. No. 34 is a studio sketch for the bishop's second version. As was frequently his practice, Constable worked out the effect of his atmospheric and compositional changes on a canvas of the size intended for the final picture. The sketch is unfinished in the tree trunks, branches, and foliage, and in the architectural detail, but Constable has approached completion so nearly in other respects that he has included the butterfly hovering near the bush at the left, which appears in the Frick painting. In the left foreground the bishop is seen proudly pointing out the spire of the cathedral to his wife. One of their daughters is advancing along the path towards her parents. These figures were regarded as recognizable likenesses: "Constable has put the Bishop & Mrs. F. as figures in his view very like & characteristic" (John Fisher to his wife, June 4, 1823; JCC vi, p. 120).

From Graham Reynolds, Constable’s England (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983), p. 104