Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-constable-108" aria-label="More by John Constable" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">John Constable</a>
Hampstead Heath with House Called Salt Box
Presented by Miss Isabel Constable 1887
adults
architecture
bush
England
figure
Hampstead Heath, Branch Hill Pond
Hampstead, The Salt Box
heathland
landscape
people
places
plants and flowers
pool
road
townscapes / man-made features
UK countries and regions
UK London
water: inland
<p>Constable rented a house at Hampstead for his family almost every summer between 1819 and 1826. In 1827, he moved there more permanently, whilst still keeping on his studio in London. In this way he combined the advantages of both locations. He wrote to his friend Fisher 'I am three miles from door to door - can have a message in an hour - &amp; I can always get away from idle callers - and above all see nature - &amp; unite a town &amp; country life.'</p><p>The views in Hampstead, looking westward and north-westward over Branch Hill Pond, were subjects Constable sketched again and again.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2002</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
19 August 2002 – 27 April 2003
2003-04-27
19 August 2002 – 27 April 2003
2003-04-27
2002-08-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-08-19
Outdoor Sketching
Collection based display
12 May 2003 – 23 April 2006
2006-04-23
12 May 2003 – 23 April 2006
2006-04-23
2003-05-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-05-12
Constable 2
Collection based display
1 June 2006 – 28 August 2006
2006-08-28
1 October 2006 – 31 December 2006
2006-12-31
2006-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
3 February 2007 – 29 April 2007
2007-04-29
2007-02-03
Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, USA)
http://www.huntington.org
2006-06-01
Constable: The Great Landscapes
Exhibition
28 May 2007 – 31 March 2008
2008-03-31
28 May 2007 – 31 March 2008
2008-03-31
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
John Constable: Marking Out a Path
Collection based display
22 July 2013 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
22 July 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-07-22
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
5 October 2013 – 5 January 2014
2014-01-05
2013-10-05
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
1 March 2014 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
2014-03-01
Laing Art Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
2013-07-22
Capturing British Landscape in the age of Turner and Constable
Loan-out
26 March 2015 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
27 November 2019 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
2019-11-27
Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
2015-03-26
British Landscape
Tate partnerships & programmes
20 February 2021 – 4 February 2023
2023-02-04
20 February 2021 – 31 May 2021
2021-05-31
2021-02-20
Mitsubishi Ichigokan (Tokyo, Japan)
1 July 2022 – 9 October 2022
2022-10-09
2022-07-01
Villa Vauban (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg)
24 October 2022 – 4 February 2023
2023-02-04
2022-10-24
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
2021-02-20
Constable and England: A History of His Affections
Tate partnerships & programmes
Hampstead Heath, with the House Called ‘The Salt Box’
support: 384 × 670 mm
frame: 600 × 889 × 95 mm
Presented by Miss Isabel Constable 1887
<p>Constable began his annual summer migrations to Hampstead, then well out in the country, in 1819. In 1827 he took up more permanent residence, leasing a house in Well Walk. His wife Maria, who would eventually die of tuberculosis, was already showing symptoms of the disease when Constable first rented a house there for her health, joining his family as often as he could. The Constables maintained a residence in London in Charlotte Street, and the artist wrote to his friend Archdeacon Fisher on 28 November 1826 that he was 'three miles from door to door - can have a message in an hour - &amp; I can get always away from idle callers - and above all see nature - &amp; unite a town &amp; country life' (in R.B. Beckett, ed., <i>John Constable's Correspondence</i>, VI, Ipswich 1968, p.228). In Hampstead Constable made numerous studies of cloud formations, many oil sketches of Hampstead views, and several 'finished' works on the spot. This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> is one of his earliest Hampstead views. The viewpoint was close to Albion Cottage, rented by the Constables in 1819. The view looks north-westwards, from near the junction of Judges Walk and the Branch Hill Road, which enters the picture at the left. The road runs past Branch Hill Pond and the house known as 'The Salt Box', a prominent residence located on Branch Hill, before leading off towards Child's Hill. Harrow appears in the distance at the extreme left. 

</p><p>Constable's friend and biographer C.R. Leslie (pp.78-9) wrote of this picture: 

</p><p></p><blockquote>
<p>Constable's art was never more perfect ... I know no picture in which the mid-day heat of Midsummer is so admirably expressed; and were not the eye refreshed by the shade thrown over a great part of the foreground by some young trees, that border the road, and the cool blue of water near it, one would wish, in looking at it, for a parasol, as Fuseli wished for an umbrella when standing before one of Constable's showers.

</p><p></p></blockquote>
<p>Further reading:<br/>C.R. Leslie, <i>Memoirs of the Life of John Constable</i>, Esq. R.A., 2nd, revised edition, 1845, pp.78-9.<br/>Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, <i>Constable</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, pp.215-16, 235, 495, 497-8, 506, 510, reproduced p.215 in colour 

</p><p>Terry Riggs<br/>February 1998 <br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>
Constable rented a house at Hampstead for his family almost every summer between 1819 and 1826. In 1827, he moved there more permanently, whilst still keeping on his studio in London. In this way he combined the advantages of both locations. He wrote to his friend Fisher 'I am three miles from door to door - can have a message in an hour - &amp; I can always get away from idle callers - and above all see nature - &amp; unite a town &amp; country life.'</p>
<p>
The views in Hampstead, looking westward and north-westward over Branch Hill Pond, were subjects Constable sketched again and again.</p>
Display caption
2002-09-10T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/constable-hampstead-heath-with-the-house-called-the-salt-box-n01236" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01236</span></a> <b>Hampstead Heath, with the house called ‘The Salt Box’</b> <i>Circa</i> 1820</p>
<p>
<br/>Oil on canvas, 15 1/8×26 5/16 (38.4×66.8).
<br/>Inscribed: a damaged label on the stretcher is inscribed 'Salt Box Hampstead Heath Painted by John Consta[able] Lined [...]'.</p>
<p><i>Prov:</i> presented by Isabel Constable to the National Gallery 1887; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1962. <i>Accession </i><span>N01236</span>.
<br/><i>Exh: </i>R.A. <i>Old Masters</i> 1878(248); Leeds 1913(72); <i>Golden Gate Exhibition</i>, San Francisco 1939(125); Venice 1950(12); <i>Le Paysage Anglais</i>, Orangerie, Paris 1953(8); Tate Gallery 1971 (not in catalogue); Tate Gallery 1976(186).
<br/><i>Lit</i>: Leslie 1845, pp.78–9, 1951, pp.72–3; Holmes 1902, pp.86, 120, 245; Shirley 1937, pp.lxix, 121; Davies 1946, p.26, 1959, pp.16–17; Beckett 1961, Paintings: Middlesex B(10) No.24; Hoozee 1979, No.288.
<br/>
<br/>The Constables first took a house at Hampstead, in addition to their London home, in the late summer of 1819, when they rented Albion Cottage for a few months. Thereafter they rented a house at Hampstead for part of each year, except 1824, finally taking No.6 (now 40) Well Walk on a more permanent basis in 1827.
<br/>
<br/>Constable's earliest surviving <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> of a Hampstead subject appears to be a study of Branch Hill Pond in the V.&amp; A. (r.171, h.267, repr. as Fig. 1 to No.29 below), which is inscribed on the stretcher ‘End of Octr. 1819’. It may have been one of the ‘two pictures, studies on Hampstead Heath’ which he showed Farington on 2 November that year. Constable first exhibited paintings of the area at the R.A. in 1821, when he showed a ‘Hampstead Heath’ and a ‘Harrow’. Another ‘Hampstead-heath’ appeared at the R.A. the following year. No.19 and paintings of Hampstead Heath in the V.&amp;A. (Fig. 1, r.323, tg 1976 No.188, h.290)<sup>1</sup> and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Fig.2, tg 1976 No.187, h.289)<sup>2</sup> are candidates for these exhibition works but no positive identification has been made.
<br/>
<br/>No.19, however, is certainly one of Constable's first Hampstead pictures. When Isabel Constable presented it to the National Gallery she identified it<sup>3</sup>
with a painting described by Leslie in the second edition of his Life. The passage follows Leslie's account of the R.A. exhibition of 1818 and precedes his comments on the year 1819:
<br/>
<br/>‘Constable’ art was never more perfect, perhaps never so perfect, as at this period of his life. I remember being greatly struck by a small picture, a view from Hampstead Heath, which I first saw at Ruysdael House, as Mr. Fisher called his [Constable's] residence in Keppel Street. I have before noticed that what are commonly called warm colours are not necessary to produce the impression of warmth in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a>; and this picture affords, to me, the strongest possible proof of the truth of this. The sky is of the blue of an English summer day, with large, but not threatening, clouds of a silvery whiteness. The distance is of a deep blue, and the near trees and grass of the freshest green; for Constable could never consent to parch up the verdure of nature to obtain warmth. These tints are balanced by a very little warm colour on a road and gravel pit in the foreground, a single house in the middle distance, and the scarlet jacket of a labourer. Yet I know no picture in which the mid-day heat of Midsummer is so admirably expressed; and were not the eye refreshed by the shade thrown over a great part of the foreground by some young trees, that border the road, and the cool blue of water near it, one would wish, in looking at it, for a parasol, as Fuseli wished for an umbrella when standing before one of Constable's showers. I am writing of this picture, which appears to have been wholly painted in the open air, after an acquaintance with it of five-and-twenty years...’
<br/>
<br/>Leslie says he first saw the painting at Keppel Street, where Constable lived from June 1817 to June 1822, and that he is writing of it after an acquaintance of twenty-five years. As the passage first occurs in the 1845 edition of the Life, Leslie had presumably known the painting since about 1820.
<br/>
<br/>The view is from somewhere near the Branch Hill end of Judges' Walk, looking roughly north. Branch Hill Pond can be seen at the right and the spire of Harrow church in the extreme distance at the left. The site of ‘The Salt Box’, seen here in the centre middle-distance, is now occupied by a house called ‘The Grange’.
<br/>
<br/>At some date after Constable's death No.19 was relined on a slightly wider stretcher and the painting extended to cover the newly exposed strips at the left and right. The picture is now framed so as to mask these additions, which include, at the right, a figure based on the labourer standing beside the foremost cart in the Fitzwilliam Museum picture referred to above. The latter work presents a view from near Whitestone Pond, looking in more or less the same direction as in No.19. Harrow again appears in the distance at the extreme left. The other Hampstead Heath picture mentioned earlier - V.&amp;A., r.323 - presents an almost complementary view in the opposite direction, taken from near the Vale of Health pond. These two and No.19 all appear to date from Constable's first years at Hampstead.
<br/>
<br/>The views over Branch Hill Pond became some of Constable's favourite Hampstead subjects. Later treatments are Nos 29, 30 and 42 below. An oil sketch in the V.&amp;A. (r.227) depicts ‘The Salt Box’ from closer to and from a different angle.
<br/>
<br/>1. Oil on canvas, 21×30 1/2 (53.3×77.6).
<br/>
<br/>2. Oil on canvas, 21 1/4×30 1/4 (54×76.9).
<br/>
<br/>3. In a letter of 29 October 1887 to the then Director of the National Gallery, Sir Frederic Burton (National Gallery archives).</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Leslie Parris, <i>The Tate Gallery Constable Collection</i>, London 1981
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture bush England figure Hampstead Heath, Branch Hill Pond Hampstead, The Salt Box heathland landscape people places plants and flowers pool road townscapes / man-made features UK countries and regions UK London water: inland