A previously unknown work by John Constable that was discovered 200 years after it was painted was sold for more than £ 400,000.
The work of the master landscape artist, entitled 'Dedham Vale looking at Langham', is a colorful representation of the Suffolk countryside.
Dedham Vale, often called 'Constable Country', is synonymous with the English artist.
It is assumed that the 12-inch oil drawings were painted between 1809-1814 when Constable was away from the classic painting styles that he was taught.
The work is considered the basis of his oil painting from 1825, 'Dedham Vale', which is now housed in a museum in Munich.
The selling costs are lean compared to that of the work of 1824 of Constable, the Slot, which was sold for £ 22.4 million in 2012 in the Christie auction House.
But the artist was not rich in his life.
A previously unknown work by John Constable that was discovered 200 years after it was painted was sold for more than £ 400,000
The work of the master landscape artist, entitled 'Dedham Vale looking at Langham', is a colorful representation of the Suffolk countryside
He refused to sell one of his provisional sketches stating that he “had no objection to saying goodbye to the corn, but not with the field it grew.”
The work was of a 19th -century art collector.
It was passed on by descending to the seller. Although he knew it was an original, it was never recorded.
The sketch was sold by Tennants auction masters in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, for Hammer Price of £ 320,000.
With reimbursements added to the total price paid, it was £ 404,480.
Jane Tennant, director at Tennants, said: 'Constable is such an icon of British art history, and I was so privileged to go to the Rostrum to auction this incredibly important piece.
'Oil sketches, just like drawings, have a directness – a direct link to the spirit and working methods of an artist.
“She was executed when he just started his extraordinary career, he has succeeded in penetrating the sketchy painted landscape with so much vitality with his agile treatment of dramatic light and shade.”
The back of the frame that houses the work. The sketch was sold by Tennants auction masters in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, for Hammer Price of £ 320,000. Added with reimbursements to the total price paid, it was £ 404,480
Born in 1776 in Suffolk, Constable brought about a revolution in the genre of landscape painting, mainly with images of the Dedham Vale, an area of excellent natural beauty
The selling costs are lean compared to the sale of the work of Constable's 1824 The Lock, which was sold for £ 22.4 million in 2012 in Christie's Auction House
The end was one of the most expensive British paintings ever sold when it was bought in 2012, but the transaction caused controversy.
Sir Norman Rosenthal, a trustee in the Bornemisza Museum of Madrid, where the painting was housed, resigned in protest.
He closed the owner Baroness Carmenn Thyssen-Bornemisza for what he called a 'moral shame'. She insisted that she had to sell because she had 'no liquidity'.
Born in 1776 in Suffolk, Constable brought about a revolution in the genre of landscape painting, mainly with images of the Dedham Vale, an area of excellent natural beauty.
His most famous painting, the Hay Wain from 1821, became a sensation after winning a gold medal in the Paris Salon in 1824.
He died in 1837.
