Set along the River Stour in Constable’s native Suffolk, The White Horse presents a scene of everyday life in the English countryside, the artist’s most cherished subject. This was the first of his monumental paintings set along the Stour. Because of their size they were called the “six-footers.” In the distance, Constable shows a white structure—Willy Lott’s cottage—named after the farmer who inhabited it during Constable’s lifetime. It still stands today in Flatford, at the heart of what is known as Constable Country.

Constable’s father owned a transport business and mills in the area. Barges, also called lighters, were towed by horses walking along a path at the river’s edge. At certain points along the waterway, the tow-path would switch to the other side, and the horse would have to be ferried across the water. In Constable’s painting, the horse takes a moment’s repose in the lighter, as bargemen labor to steer the vessel to the other side. Their struggle is subsumed by the overall serenity of the scene, its carefully observed trees, clouds, and reflections in the water.

After some twenty years of effort and after exhibiting this painting at the Royal Academy, in 1819, Constable was finally elected an Associate Member. His friend, Archdeacon John Fisher, bought the painting, though, ten years later, suffering financial trouble, he asked Constable to buy it back. The artist purchased The White Horse at the original purchase price and kept it until his death. It was one of his favorite paintings. As he noted, “There are generally in the life of an artist perhaps one, two, or three pictures, on which hang more than usual interest—this is mine.”