Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.41
Gallery Label:
John Constable exhibited a version of Ploughing Scene in Suffolk in 1815, a view of his beloved Stour Valley from just outside Old Hall Park in his native village of East Bergholt. The field is a pasture that is plowed and harrowed in dry weather, then left fallow. The painting was bought by John Allnutt and was the first picture Constable had ever sold at a time when he considered abandoning art altogether. Allnutt disliked the sky and soon asked John Linnell to repaint it. Years later he regretted the decision and asked Constable to restore the original. Instead, Constable painted this second version, and seems not to have been offended by Allnutt’s actions because he felt forever grateful to Allnutt, a total stranger, for being the first collector to buy his work. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
