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#218: By Aimee Ng, Curator Transcript

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.”

The White Horse

 (British, 1776–1837)
Date1819
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions51 3/4 × 74 1/8 in. (131.4 × 188.3 cm)
Credit LinePurchased by The Frick Collection, 1943
Accession number1943.1.147
Commentary

The painting depicts a tow-horse being ferried across the river Stour in Suffolk, just below Flatford Lock at a point where the tow-path switched banks. Constable, who described the scene as "as placid representation of a serene, grey morning, summer," went on in later years to comment: "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." The painting was well received when it was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1819, and it was purchased by Constable's friend Archdeacon John Fisher. Constable bought back the painting in 1829 and kept it the rest of his life. There is a full-scale oil sketch for The White Horse in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Collection History

Archdeacon Fisher, purchased from the artist in 1819 for £100. Bought back by Constable in 1830. Constable sale May 15-16, 1838, London, Lot 77, Sold for £157 10s to Morton. L. Archer Burton, Woodlands, Hampshire. Burton Archer-Burton sale, March 31, 1855, Christie's, Lot 99, sold for £630 to Hodgson. Richard Hemming, London. His sale, April 28, 1894, Christie's, Lot 84, sold for £6,510 to Agnew. J. Pierpont Morgan (1894). Knoedler, Frick, 1943.

Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. Volume I. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.

Not On View
Oil study of dark grey cumulus clouds viewed from below against a blue sky.
John Constable
ca. 1822
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John Constable
ca. 1822
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Charles-François Daubigny
1877
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