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| John Constable Landscape with farm buildings early 19th century watercolor British Museum |
The English painter John Constable (1776-1837) was thirty years old when he spent the months of June and July 1806 as a guest at Markfield House in Tottenham – north of London at that time, though long since engulfed. It was a prosperous family with sixteen children. Father was a large-scale builder who obtained many government contracts. Several of the daughters were fashionable young women, exactly contemporary with Jane Austen's heroines. Curators at the British Museum, which owns one of Constable's sketchbooks from this visit, can only speculate about the terms of Constable's presence in the Hobson household. He may have been preparing to paint a portrait or portraits of the family. Yet the only Hobson portrait by Constable known to exist was painted two years later, when one of the daughters was married. There is a suggestion that he may have been employed during these two months as a drawing master. Whatever his status, Constable's sketchbook captured more than enough intimate Hobson moments in that summer of 1806 to propel the plot of another Sense and Sensibility.
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| John Constable Ann and stick c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Ann Hobson c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Emma Hobson c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Emma, Laura and Susanna Hobson reading c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Young woman reading c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Young woman reading c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Susanna Hobson reading c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Susanna Hobson c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Joshua and Laura holding hands c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Two figures embracing c. 1806 drawing British Musuem |
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| John Constable Laura Hobson soaring to the sun c. 1806 drawing British Museum |
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| John Constable Young woman in a frenzy c. 1806 watercolor British Museum |
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| John Constable Young woman and spinet c. 1806 watercolor British Museum |