A lost painting by John Constable showing a different view of a farm cottage that features in one of his most celebrated works has been rediscovered.
The oil on canvas sketch, thought to have been done in situ in 1814, shows the rear of Willy Lott’s house, which appears in Constable’s 1821 masterpiece The Hay Wain.
It was found in a private collection in Guernsey and is being auctioned this month with a guide price of between £80,000 and £120,000, but could fetch far more.
Jonathan Voak, a paintings specialist at Martel Maides Auctions, said: “This is a remarkable rediscovery of a work whose whereabouts has been unknown for 44 years. Its location was last recorded in 1979 when it appeared in an Italian scholarly publication listing the works of John Constable.”
The painting was found hanging on the wall of a terrace house in Guernsey.
Voak said: “The painting was found among a large number of items that came from an old terraced house in Guernsey. It was first seen by a member of our team hanging in a dark corner of the dining room.
“That was some years ago and at that time it was certainly not thought to be a genuine Constable. It subsequently came to MMA when the owner died as part of the deceased estate.”
The auction house said the sketch, which also shows a figure apparently cutting logs, had a “firm provenance” stretching back as far as the 19th century when it was owned by Constable’s grandson, Hugh Golding Constable, who sold it to the fine art dealers Leggatt Brothers.
It almost certainly featured at a Leggatt Brothers exhibition in London in November 1899, the first to be devoted solely to Constable’s work.
When painting in Suffolk in the early part of his career, Constable regularly made oil sketches in the open air. Willy Lott was a tenant farmer who lived in Flatford next to the land he farmed. For Constable, the house became emblematic of the rural way of life.
The painting, which measures 11.5in by 9.58in and is presented in a swept gilded frame, is to be sold at auction on 21 September.
