Name: JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. (EAST BERGHOLT, SUFFOLK 1776-1837 HAMPSTEAD)
Brand: Miss Lewis with a rabbit, bust-length
Price: 32000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. (EAST BERGHOLT, SUFFOLK 1776-1837 HAMPSTEAD)
Miss Lewis with a rabbit, bust-length
oil on canvas
16³⁄₄ x 13³⁄₈ in. (42.6 x 34 cm.)

John Lewis, Dedham, and by descent to his son
John Lewis, Brighton, and by inheritance to his wife
Sarah Ann Lewis (d. 1895), Brighton, and by descent to her daughter
Jessie Gutteridge (née Lewis), and by descent in 1916 to her son
E. Dudley Gutteridge, and by descent to
Hubert E.D.Gutteridge, Esq.; Sotheby's, London, 14 July 1976, part of lot 93.
Acquired privately from Sotheby's, London, with its pendant by the present owner on 5 April 1995.

D.S. MacColl, 'Two Portraits by John Constable,' The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, XLIII, 1923, pp. 34-35, illustrated.
G. Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, New Haven and London, 1996, I, p. 57, no. 04.12; II, plate 233.

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Lot Essay

This charming portrait and its pendant (see following lot) were painted in 1804 and depict the daughters of Constable's friend, John Lewis, who, like the artist, lived in the vicinity of Dedham. So close were the Constable and Lewis families that John Lewis' eponymous son served as the model for the child held in Christ's arms in Constable's early altarpiece Christ Blessing the Children, commissioned for St. Michael's Church, Brantham, in 1805. D.S. MacColl relays that, according to family history, Constable, a frequent visitor to the Lewis household, painted these portraits as a gift (loc. cit.). A portrait of the girls' brother painted by Constable in 1807 was sold Sotheby's, London, 29 November 1978, lot 26 (see G. Reynolds, op. cit., I, p. 117, no. 07.11; II, fig. 682).