Hampstead Heath, Looking Toward Harrow (c. 1821): Art, History and Details

Hampstead Heath, Looking Toward Harrow (c. 1821) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Constable (British, 1776–1837).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Constable was interested in the changing light effects of weather and often worked outdoors, making swift oil sketches on paper. He focused on painting the countryside of his native England, which he never left. He wrote to a fellow artist that he would “rather be a poor man [in England] than a rich man abroad.”

Object facts

• Title: Hampstead Heath, Looking Toward Harrow
• Date: c. 1821
• Creator attribution: John Constable (British, 1776–1837)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on paper, mounted on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 39 x 44.5 x 5 cm (15 3/8 x 17 1/2 x 1 15/16 in.); Unframed: 25.9 x 31.3 cm (10 3/16 x 12 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1916.1027

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Saisselin, Remy. "Art Is an Imitation of Nature." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LII, (1965): 41-42.
• Talbot, William S. "John Constable: Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead Heath." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LIX (1974): 107.
• Hoozee, Robert. L'opera completa di Constable. Milano, Italy: Rizzoli, 1979.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.