John Constable – Cloud Study, 1821 | Giclée Print
John Constable – Cloud Study, 1821 | Giclée Print
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No horizon, no landscape, no place — only sky. Constable set his board down on Hampstead Heath on the afternoon of 13 September 1821 and painted what was over his head: a bank of altocumulus breaking up, warm grey against blue, laid in fast with a loaded brush.
On the back he wrote what he had seen, in ink on a small parchment label: “Sept’r 13th one o’clock. Slight wind at North West, which became tempestuous in the afternoon, with Rain all the night following.” He did this for every study of that autumn — hour, wind, and the weather before and after. It is a painter keeping a weather record.
This is the first of the studies with no horizon line at all, and September was his month: he thought its skies had a “peculiar tone and beauty”.
What this is. A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks from the museum’s own open-access photograph. It is not an oil painting and is not sold as one.
Scale
Original: 24.8 × 30.2 cm / 9.8 × 11.9 in — oil on paper laid on board, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
50 × 40 cm / 19.7 × 15.7 in — original size, 1:1. Image 30.20 × 25.59 cm.
70 × 50 cm / 27.6 × 19.7 in — enlarged, 1.19× original. Image 36.07 × 30.56 cm.
The print
Giclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks. White border, optical centre. The paper tone of the original is kept, not corrected. Unframed. Shipped rolled in a tube.
A note on the height. The catalogued size is 24.8 × 30.2 cm; the photograph of the sheet is proportioned a little differently, so at 1:1 the printed height comes out at 25.6 cm. We anchor the width and leave the file as it is rather than stretch it. Our assumption, stated as an assumption: the catalogue measures the board, the photograph shows the paper laid on it.
Provenance
John Constable (1776–1837), Cloud Study, 13 September 1821; oil on paper laid on board, 24.8 × 30.2 cm.
Where this comes from
The museum file, the measurements, and what we are allowed to sell: the record for this sheet.
Further reading
Why This Print Is Not Bigger
