The White Horse

1818-1819

John Constable

Artist, British, 1776 - 1837

From a grassy riverbank, we look across the placid surface of a river lined along the far bank with trees and farm animals in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted loosely with brushstrokes visible throughout, so some details are difficult to make out. For the surface of the river, russet-brown and steel-gray paint skims lightly across the canvas and leaves some unpainted areas visible, creating the effect of light shimmering on the still water. On our left, a shallow wooden barge is propelled along the stream by two men in red caps with long poles. The boat carries a white horse wearing blinders and a harness. The riverbank beyond is lined with pale, sage-green grass tinged with gold, growing in front of a tangle of darker green trees and bushes. Across the water from us near the middle of the picture, a small rowboat sits in the shallows at the foot of a steep riverbank. Above, a white cottage with a reddish roof and chimney is tucked behind the trees, with a wooden rack full of hay next to it. Nearby, a plow and wheeled cart, highlighted with strokes of white, sit near more mounds of hay. Rocky fields reach into the distance. The vista is blocked to our right by another clump of trees and a rocky outcropping, rising from the stream, to our right of center. The steep, dark roof of a farmhouse is barely visible among the trees. Along the riverside to our right, a small group of cinnamon-brown and cream-white cows stand at water's edge. A rolling pasture stretches behind them to meet blue hills in the distance. Above, in the upper third of the painting, mottled white, pale rose, and gray clouds rolling across a steel-gray sky are reflected in the water below.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

This six-foot-wide canvas was something new for a 19th-century artist: it’s a sketch the same size as the final painting (now in the Frick Collection in New York). Constable’s earlier works were smaller, and other artists’ large landscapes often overshadowed them in exhibitions.

In response, he made The White Horse bigger than any of his previous paintings. In it, a barge carries a white horse across the Stour River (in Suffolk, England) to its tow path on the other bank.

To achieve this new and unfamiliar scale, Constable first painted a “full-sized sketch.” He formed the overall composition using broad brushstrokes without including details. Constable found this process so helpful that he continued it for the rest of his career.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 57

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 127 x 183 cm (50 x 72 1/16 in.)
    framed: 164.5 x 219.7 x 17.2 cm (64 3/4 x 86 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.9

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Almost certainly retained in the studio by the artist until his death in 1837.[1] John (later Sir John) Pender [b. 1816], by 1872.[2] (E. Fox White Gallery, London), by 1882;[3] sold to (Wallis & Son, London); purchased 1893 by Peter A.B. Widener, Philadelphia, and Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] The Gallery's painting is the first of the artist's full-scale sketches for his six-foot canal scenes. The finished painting based on this sketch is now in The Frick Collection, New York.
[1] Pender lent the painting to the 1872 Winter Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Works of the Old Masters, together with Works of Deceased Masters of the British School.
[2] See the letter from Wallis & Son to P.A.B. Widener, 1 January 1909, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1872

  • Works of the Old Masters, together with Works of Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1872, no. 118.

2006

  • Constable's Great Landscapes: The Six-foot Paintings, Tate Britain, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, 2006-2007, no. 28, repro.

Bibliography

1892

  • Smetham, Sarah and William Davies, eds. Letters of James Smetham. 2d ed. London and New York, 1892: 289-291.

1915

  • Roberts, William. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: British and Modern French Schools, Philadelphia, 1915: unpaginated, repro.

1923

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 170, repro.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 95, repro.

1960

  • Reynolds, Graham. Catalogue of the Constable Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 1960: 27.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 321, repro.

1965

  • Reynolds, Graham. Constable: The Natural Painter. London, 1965: 63.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 29.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 22, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 72, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 594, color repro.

1979

  • Hoozee, Robert. L'opera completa di Constable. Milan, 1979: 149, repro., no. 618.

1983

  • Rosenthal, Michael. Constable: The Painter and His Landscape. New Haven and London, 1983: 117, pl. 152.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 408, no. 579, color repro.

  • Reynolds, Graham. The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1984: 1:27-31, no. 19.2; 2:color pl. 69.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 93, repro.

1990

  • Rhyne, Charles S. "Constable's First Two Six-foot Landscapes." Studies in the History of Art 24 (1990): 109-129.

1992

  • Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 32-39, repro. 35.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 200-202, 279, color figs. 217-219.

2006

  • Kelly, Franklin. "John Constable, The White Horse." and Swicklik, Michael. "Uncovering Constable's Lost Sketch for The White Horse." Bulletin / National Gallery of Art, no. 35, (Fall 2006): 2-7, figs. 1 and 2; 8-11, figs. 1-6.

2009

  • Gariff, David, Eric Denker, and Dennis P. Weller. The World's Most Influential Painters and the Artists They Inspired. Hauppauge, NY, 2009: 99, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20184168

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