Guisborough Priory, after Girtin

Constable’s early works reveal the influence of several great painters: Raphael, Rubens and Claude Lorrain. His contemporary John Cranch supplied him with a list of ‘Painter’s Reading’ which provided a grounding in the history and theory of art. John Thomas ‘Antiquity’ Smith lent him drawings and prints. With the encouragement of these friends, Constable entered the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1799 to embark on a career as a painter.

Recent British landscape artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, Richard Wilson and Thomas Girtin encouraged him to establish a dialogue between the Old Masters and close study of the natural world.

This drawing has been identified as a copy after Girtin's drawing of Guisborough Priory