An early study (British Museum 1888, 0215.72) of 1824 shows two barges manoeuvring past the Float Jump with a horse standing by the bridge. He wrote to Fisher on 17 Nov telling him that he was planning a 'large picture' and by 17 Dec he was 'putting a 6-foot canvas in hand' (Beckett VI, pp.181, 187). This bridge marks a county boundary – the horse is in fact leaping over a crossing which takes the horse and rider from Essex into his native Suffolk.Ĭonstable began work on this picture in November 1824. The inclusion of the church as well as providing a finishing point on the right of the painting also places this work firmly in Suffolk. Dedham Church at right of the picture was only revealed only fully during relining of the picture in 1952 and is not topographically accurate. Local details are included with the elibray or eel trap which is the netting we see under the bridge set up to catch eels. It is over this barrier the horse jumps – local Suffolk barge horses were specially trained to jump over three-feet-high barriers erected along the tow-path in order to keep cattle from straying. Over the sluice is the small wooden bridge and wooden barrier. The Leaping Horse takes for its subject the traffic on the River Stour and the site has been identified as the Float Bridge or the Float Jump which includes the feature we can see here of the sluice on the south bank of the Stour on the Essex bank at a point where the course of the old river leaves the main branch of the river section. The removal of the willow stump and the addition of the half-furled sail on the barge gave the composition greater strength and direction by concentrating the eye on the dramatic leap of the horse. Constable then altered the composition by painting over an old willow stump which was in front of the horse, although a faint trace of the tree can still be seen. The painting was begun in 1824 and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1825 but remained unsold. The Leaping Horse is from this series and depicts a tow horse jumping one of the barriers erected along the path by the River Stour to prevent cattle from straying. In 1819 Constable embarked upon a series of large six-foot canvases with the aim of making his reputation as a serious landscape painter. He claimed that the Suffolk countryside 'made him a painter'.Ĭonstable paid great attention to weather and he described this painting as ‘a lovely subject, of the canal kind, lively – & soothing – calm and exhilarating, fresh – & blowing.’ John Constable depicts a scene in Suffolk where he spent his 'careless boyhood'. The barge lowers its sail, the rope slackens and the tow horse leaps the barrier on the path.
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