The Cottage in a Cornfield

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.

2 October 1816

Married: Maria Bicknell

1821

“The Hay Wain” at the Royal Academy

The picture, shown as “Landscape: Noon”, found no buyer, but it was seen by the painter Théodore Géricault and the writer Charles Nodier. According to Delacroix, Géricault went back to France quite stunned and invited Constable to Paris, while Nodier urged French artists to look to nature rather than to trips to Rome.

1824

The Paris Salon: a gold medal

The Anglo-French dealer John Arrowsmith bought The Hay Wain and other works, and in 1824 they were shown at the Paris Salon, where they caused a sensation. The Hay Wain was awarded a gold medal by Charles X.

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.

February 1829

Elected to the Royal Academy at fifty-two

In February 1829, three months after his wife’s death, Constable was elected a member of the Royal Academy, at the age of 52.