In the original dustsheet. Brown cloth binding with purple gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

When John Constable fell in love with Maria Bicknell, granddaughter of a Suffolk country neighbour, he little knew how long it would take to make her his wife. The impediment to their marriage was simple: ‘that necessary article cash’. He was a painter without sufficient funds to support the daughter of a prominent London lawyer, and both he and her grandfather, the formidable (and sometimes comical) Rector of East Bergholt, disapproved of the match. It would be seven long, difficult years before they could marry, but in that time he would become one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century. Martin Gayford writes superbly about Constable’s early years as a painter and Maria and John’s correspondence provides the lively backdrop to the story; one of lovers’ tiffs, London versus country life, encounters with Turner, Byron and Wordsworth, royal scandals and rivalries at the Royal Academy. All the time, John Constable battles to become a painter who can earn his living and win Maria’s hand.

Review: I could not put this book down. It focuses on the relationship between John Constable and his (eventual) wife Maria and their rather tortuous lengthy engagement. I know Constable’s paintings well and much enjoyed learning what was going on in his life whilst he was painting these pictures. I have been making a point of re-visiting the museums which exhibit his work ever since. If you are interested in learning more about the painter, then I could not recommend the book more highly.

Martin Gayford has been art critic of the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph. He is currently chief European art critic for Bloomberg. Among his publications are The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, The Penguin Book of Art Writing, of which he was co-editor, and contributions to many catalogues. He is co-curator of the exhibition Constable Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery and Compton Verney in 2009. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and two children.

John Constable, Self-portrait 1806, pencil on paper, Tate Gallery London. His only indisputable self-portrait, drawn by an arrangement of mirrors.

John Constable RA (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as “Constable Country” – which he invested with an intensity of affection. “I should paint my own places best”, he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, “painting is but another word for feeling”.

                            The Hay Wain (1821)

Constable’s most famous paintings include Wivenhoe Park (1816), Dedham Vale (1821) and The Hay Wain (1821). Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful. He became a member of the establishment after he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 52. His work was embraced in France, where he sold more than in his native England and inspired the Barbizon school