An Old Bridge at Salisbury

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.