Flatford Mill 1817 By John Constable

John Constable's Flatford Mill painting offers a fascinating glimpse into early 19th-century English society. 

This painting is also one of the most famous landscape oil paintings of the English countryside. Green fields and ancient oak trees appear on the right-hand side of the image. However, to the left of the painting, the effects of the Industrial Age are apparent. Men work alongside horses on a canal towpath, and large red-brick buildings are visible in the distance.

Where is the location of Flatford Mill, and when was it painted?

John Constable's famous painting was completed between 1816 and 1817 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817. Of all of the famous John Constable paintings, it is unusual for its generous size. At over 100 by 120 centimeters, it is his largest plein air canvas. Before this date, Constable produced “exhibition works” in his studio. However, in around 1814, he declared that he would create finished paintings purely from nature.

In Flatford Mill, subtitled “Scene on a Navigable River”, the artist depicts scenes from his childhood in Suffolk. Describing his early years as “careless boyhood”,  John Constable's paintings include scenes of the River Stour. Indeed, the nearby “Willy Lott’s House” appears in another famous Constable painting, The Hay Wain, completed in 1821.

This painting depicts young boys disconnecting a rope from a horse, a technique enabling boats to cross under Flatford Bridge, with bargemen pushing the barge.
Despite the highly detailed outdoor scene, Constable finished many elements in his studio. This later work includes details such as the timberwork, the boy and the horse, and the mooring post.

The Mill is located just south of the village of East Bergholt. Found on the east side of the Dedham Vale, an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it is a stunning location.

The Tate Gallery in London, England, currently owns Constable's most famous painting, which was bequeathed by his daughter, Miss Isabel Constable, in 1888.
It forms part of a diverse collection of paintings by John Constable at the Tate Galleries. With over 256 individual artworks, this collection features oil-painted landscapes, including Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows and Dedham Vale, as well as numerous beautiful cloud study paintings.

How much is Constable's famous landscape oil painting worth?

In 1986, a collector bought Flatford Mill for just over $3.7 million. At the time, this was almost eight times the earlier record sale price for a 19th-century English landscape painting. 
Sold at Christie’s auction house, it has remained in Britain. With inflation, this is equivalent to $9 million today.

An earlier record for John Constable's paintings emerged in 1985 when a collector paid almost half a million dollars. For this price, they bought an oil-on-paper composition depicting a sunset in Hampstead, North London.

What happened to Constable's painting of Flatford?

The Mill's medieval origins go back to whole cloth “Fulling”. This is a process of beating wet woolen cloth to interlace the fibers. As a result, it created more robust and durable textiles.
Known as Flotfordmelle for much of its early history, the site was a working mill for several centuries. 

From 1742 to 1846, the Constable family owned the plot. Abram Constable bought the mill in 1742, where he employed two millers, named Henry Crush and Samuel Lamb. 

Golding Constable, John's father, inherited the mill in 1768. He continued operating the mill and ran a fleet of commercial barges along the River Stour.  In 1816, Abram Constable Junior, his younger brother, took over Flatford Mill upon their father's death.

It is an ancient site, mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1087 as a well-established mill, marking the first historical record.
It even records William the Conqueror’s order to reserve some of this rich pastureland for himself, and that there was a mill at Flatford, even before the Norman Conquest in 1066.

John Constable was never financially successful in his own life. However, today, his paintings are among the most sought-after landscape oil paintings. 

John Constable's art reproductions are among our most popular and beautiful landscape art pieces. 

In a fitting tribute to a painter who revolutionized landscape painting, the area around East Bergholt now proudly boasts the title of “Constable Country”.