Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, engraving. Martino Rota (about 1520–82), after Titian, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, bequest of David Murray in 1908

A cottage in a cornfield  about 1816–17
oil on canvas
Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum Wales, Cardiff, purchased with the assistance of the National Art Collections Fund in 1978

As a boy, Constable often passed this cottage as he walked to school in Dedham. He depicted it many times in drawings and paintings. He made this drawing in 1815 and probably used it to jog his memory when painting his second oil version of the subject in 1816.

The painting differs from the drawing in several ways.

• The painting shows the scene at high summer, with the field of corn reaching the height of the cottage window.
• Constable has added a figure to the left of the cottage and a donkey and foal to the right of the gate.
• He has substituted the tree on the right in the drawing with one based on the engraving Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, by Martino Rota after Titian. Even when Constable was working close to nature, he combined different elements in his paintings to improve the composition.

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