National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | Constable

This was Constable’s last major painting of the Stour Valley, his definitive treatment of a favourite subject, which summed up his personal affection for the place and his lifelong devotion to the example of Claude Lorrain. A relaxing holiday in Suffolk in the autumn of 1827 with his two eldest children had refreshed his associations with the area and may have motivated him to begin painting this work. On 11 June 1828 he wrote to John Fisher that he had ‘Painted a large upright landscape (perhaps my best)’ (Beckett IV, p. 236). Constable depicted the Dedham Vale framed by trees, looking eastwards from Gun Hill, down along the course of the River Stour towards the sea, with the tower of Dedham Church and the village in the middle distance, and Harwich beyond. For this composition he returned to his early painting, Dedham Vale 1802 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), intensifying the detail of the 1802 study by including the bridge across the river with the Talbooth on the right bank. He added the old stu