Sir Richard Steele's Cottage, Hampstead
John Constable
1831 to 1832
The years 1831 and 1832 brought loss, ill health, and depression for Constable. Yet this view of London from Hampstead gives a sense of life rolling on regardless. A stagecoach passes the cottage of the Irish playwright Richard Steele, following Constable’s daily route to his Charlotte Street studio. Across the city, thick plumes of smoke swirl into the sky, the darkest emanating from the new gasworks on Regent’s Canal. Marked by the unsettling signs of industrial change, the painting is a far cry from the tranquil locks and waterways of the Stour Valley that launched Constable’s career more than two decades before.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0