Stratford Mill
- Artist: John Constable
- Date: 1820
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "Stratford Mill" by John Constable. Painted in 1820, it's an oil on canvas masterpiece that showcases Constable's ability to capture the beauty of the English countryside.
As you look at the painting, you'll notice the mill in shadow, while shafts of sunlight play between the trees and on a narrow wooden gate beside the meandering river. A dying willow leans its yellowing leaves over the glassy water, and we glimpse a distant sunlit farmhouse. An unladen barge is being moored to the far bank.
Near the mill, a girl watches a kneeling boy cast his fishing line into the water, and it looks as though the angler to their left has just got a bite. This serene scene was inspired by Constable's own surroundings in Suffolk, where he grew up. The painting was actually part of a series of six monumental paintings that Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825.
After its initial exhibition, the painting received good reviews but failed to sell. It later became known as "The Young Waltonians", a reference to Izaak Walton's book on fishing, The Compleat Angler, published in 1653.
See it in person
Stratford Mill hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, 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.
