Boat-Building near Flatford Mill

This oil painting portrays the construction of a barge at a dry-dock owned by Constable's father. It is based on a tiny pencil drawing in a sketchbook at the V&A. Constable painted the landscape entirely in the open air. His biographer C. R. Leslie praised its 'atmospheric truth', such that 'the tremulous vibration of the heated air near the ground seems visible'.