An Old Horse

The painter John Constable (1776-1834) supposedly discovered this plaster cast in a Suffolk junk shop. It is the only known sculpture attributed to Gainsborough, although he may well have made others. Gainsborough is known to have constructed model landscapes using pieces of mirror, lumps of coal and broccoli, from which he drew, and he perhaps made models of animals to incorporate into these. He often included working horses in both his drawings and oil paintings.

On loan from the Constable Family