Art Institute of Chicago

An Old Bridge at Salisbury

John Constable

Date

c. 1826

Medium

Etching on ivory China paper, laid down on off-white wove paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This unusual etching is one of only four prints that John Constable himself produced. All of these prints date to around 1826, about six years before Constable began to work closely with the printmaker David Lucas on a lush series of mezzotints reproducing some of his naturalistic landscape paintings. This etching retains the artist’s lively drawing style and also recalls his interest in earlier works by Dutch Baroque landscape etchers. He is in fact said to have owned several thousand prints by earlier European artists and to have consulted them for inspiration. He designed this print after a 14th-century bridge a mile outside Salisbury, England.

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