An Old Bridge at Salisbury
c. 1826
Medium
Etching on ivory China paper, laid down on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
Plate: 11.6 × 18 cm (4 5/8 × 7 1/8 in.); Chine: 12.8 × 18.5 cm (5 1/16 × 7 5/16 in.); Sheet: 30.5 × 44.7 cm (12 1/16 × 17 5/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
117596
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This unusual etching is one of only four prints that John Constable himself produced. All of these prints date to around 1826, about six years before Constable began to work closely with the printmaker David Lucas on a lush series of mezzotints reproducing some of his naturalistic landscape paintings. This etching retains the artist’s lively drawing style and also recalls his interest in earlier works by Dutch Baroque landscape etchers. He is in fact said to have owned several thousand prints by...
About the Artist
John Constable · 1776–1837
John Constable (1776-1837) was an English landscape painter whose naturalistic depictions of the Suffolk countryside revolutionized landscape painting and established him, alongside J.M.W. Turner, as one of England's greatest artists. His work pioneered the direct observation of nature that would later influence the French Barbizon school and, ultimately, Impressionism. Born in East Bergholt, Suf...