Boat-building near Flatford Mill

Painted in 1815, Boat-building near Flatford Mill shows a stretch of the River Stour near Flatford Mill, on the border between Essex and Suffolk. The focus is the craft of making boats, with vessels in progress set against the riverside landscape that surrounds them. Constable belonged to the English Romantic movement, and here his fascination with everyday life in the valley where he grew up is evident. The mill was owned by his father, which gives the scene a personal dimension, and the area later became known as Constable Country. The work has been described as a precursor to his later six-foot paintings of the same region. Constable showed it at the Royal Academy in 1815, alongside four other pictures. It now belongs to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, having arrived as part of the Sheepshanks Gift of 1857.

Painter

John Constable

Date

1815

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

51 × 62 cm

Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Movement

Romanticism

Genre

landscape painting

Depicts

boat

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