Half-size Sketch for The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (“Whitehall Stairs, June 18, 1817”)
Date:
1829 to 1831
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
24 × 39 inches (61 × 99.1 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.44
Gallery Label:
In 1817, on the second anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, John Constable likely witnessed the opening of the new bridge in London named to commemorate this battle. He planned a painting representing the event with the Prince Regent and his entourage waiting to board the royal barge in the foreground. The finished painting, one of Constable’s “six-footers,” was not exhibited until thirteen years later. He created this half-scale sketch sometime in the intervening period while planning the composition. It is possible that this sketch was used as a model for a mezzotint in Constable’s great publication of prints after his work titled English Landscape Scenery. In the end, however, he decided that this urban cityscape did not fit well in a publication devoted to rural views, and he replaced it with a view of a farmyard. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
