A Bank on Hampstead Heath
- Artist: John Constable
- Date: c.1820–2
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 206 x 254 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “A Bank on Hampstead Heath” by John Constable. Painted in oil on canvas around 1820‑22, it captures a close‑up of the rough, broken texture of the heath that Constable so loved. In the background a sliver of distant hill breaks the flatness, giving a sense of depth, while tiny figures dot the horizon—just enough to let us gauge the scale of the landscape.
Between 1819 and 1826, Constable rented a house in Hampstead every summer, producing dozens of sketches of the surrounding skies and ground. He moved there permanently in 1827, and this painting is one of the highly finished studies from that period. The work was bequeathed to the National Gallery by George Salting in 1910 and later passed to the Tate.
Notice how the brushwork bursts with the wet, spattered feel of the heath, a signature of Constable’s commitment to capturing nature “in the moment.” It’s a small canvas—just over eight inches wide—but it invites us to linger on the texture and the fleeting light, reminding us of the fleeting nature of a sunny summer afternoon on the heath.
See it in person
A Bank on Hampstead Heath is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
