L'Arc-en-ciel

1799

Asks his father to let him paint

In 1799 Constable persuaded his father to let him pursue art and received a small allowance. He entered the Royal Academy Schools under the tutelage of Joseph Farington, attending life classes and anatomical dissections and copying old masters.

1802

Turns down a drawing-master post

Constable declined the post of drawing master at Great Marlow Military College, which Benjamin West, then head of the Academy, said would end his career. In a letter to John Dunthorne he admitted he had spent two years seeking the truth at second hand and declared his resolve to become a professional landscape painter.

1802–1803

First exhibitions at the Royal Academy

Constable first showed his work in 1802, and by 1803 he was exhibiting paintings at the Royal Academy.

1816

A marriage against the bride’s grandfather

Maria’s grandfather, Dr Rhudde, rector of East Bergholt, opposed the match: he thought the Constables his social inferiors and threatened to disinherit her. Constable’s parents approved but offered no support until he was financially secure; they died soon afterwards, and he inherited a fifth share of the family business.

23 November 1828

The death of his wife Maria

After the birth of their seventh child the family returned to Hampstead, where Maria died of tuberculosis at the age of 41. “Hourly do I feel the loss of my departed Angel,” Constable wrote to his brother.

31 March 1837

Died