This view, one of Constable’s favourites, is taken from above Gun Hill Road looking west down the Stour Valley towards Dedham Church. The Stratford St. Mary toll bridge is prominent in the middle ground.
According to a label on the reverse of the picture, the sketch originally belonged to David Lucas, Constable’s engraver, who produced the famous set of mezzotints English Landscape. The picture was later owned by the celebrated Japanese collector, Kojira Matsukata, whose collection of western paintings subsequently became the core of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.
Constable’s earliest known view of Dedham is the watercolour of 1800 now in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and the last, the well-known Dedham Vale of 1828 (National Gallery of Scotland). The present picture dates to c.1810 and is not connected to a larger work.
