John Constable: Remembering a Friend and Artist

"Stratford Mill" by John Constable

"An account written by the author's father, also a friend of John Constable, shows how keenly he was affected by the artist's death: 'On the 1st of April, 1837, as I was dressing, I saw from my window Pitt - a man employed by Constable to carry messages - at the gate. He sent up word that he wished to speak to me, and I ran down expecting one of Constable's amusing notes, or a message from him; but the message was from his children, and to tell me that he had died suddenly the night before. My wife and I were in Charlotte Street as soon as possible. I went up into his bedroom, where he lay looking as if in a tranquil sleep. His watch, which his hand had so lately wound up, ticking on a table by his side, on which also lay Southey's 'Life of Cowper,' which he had been reading scarcely an hour before his death. He had died as he lived, surrounded by art, for the walls of the little attic were covered with engravings, and his feet nearly touched a print of the beautiful moonlight by Rubens, belonging to Mr. Rogers. I remained the whole day in the house, and the greater part of it in his room, watching the progress of casts made from his face by his neighbour, Mr. Joseph, and by Mr. Davis. 

Among all the landscape painters, ancient or modern, no one carries me so entirely to nature, and I can truly say that since I have known his works. I have never looked at a tree or the sky without being reminded of him.. .'

John Constable's eldest son was prevented from attending the funeral by an illness, brought on by the painful excitement he had suffered, but the two brothers of the deceased, and a few of his most intimate friends, followed the body to Hampstead, where some of the gentlemen residing there who had know Constable, joined the procession in the churchyard. The vault which contained the remains of his wife was opened and he was laid by her side. The inscription which he had placed on the tablet over it read 'Eheu! quam tenui e filo pendet / Quidquid in vita maxime arridet!' [Alas! how thinly hangs from a thread whatever smiles most in life!].  The funeral service was read by one of those friends, the Rev. T.J. Judkin, whose tears fell fast on the book as he stood by the tomb."

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)