The Cornfield is an oil painting by the English artist John Constable, completed from January to March 1826 in the artist’s studio. The painting shows a lane leading from East Bergholt toward Dedham, Essex, and depicts a young shepherd boy drinking from a pool in the heat of summer. The location is along Fen Lane, which the artist knew well. Constable referred to the piece as The Drinking Boy.
The Cornfield
Study for The Cornfield (1826), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
David Lucas's mezzotint print of The Cornfield (published in 1834), Tate Britain
The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, as it appeared in the 1830s
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
John Constable by Daniel Gardner, 1796
Plaque in East Bergholt marking the site of Constable’s childhood home
The Vale of Dedham (1828). Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Wivenhoe Park (1816). National Gallery of Art, Washington.