The Cornfield, from "L'Art"
Etcher John Park British
After John Constable British
Printer Alfred Fortuné Salmon French
Not on view
Park's etching was published in the French monthly magazine "L'Art" and reproduces a painting by Constable from 1826 in the National Gallery, London. It had been purchased from the artist's estate in 1837 for the nascent national collection by a body of subscribers and given the present title at that time. The artist had first exhibited the canvas at the Royal Academy of Arts as "Landscape," defying any specificity. The following year he re-exhibited the work at the British Institution with the revised title "Landscape: Noon" adding lines from the poem "Summer," first published in 1730, by James Thomson (1700–1748): "A fresher gale begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn."
