Wivenhoe Park

In 1816 Constable was finally in a position to marry. He had been engaged to Maria Bicknell for years while her family objected, and commissions like this one helped tip the balance. Major-General Francis Rebow had asked for a portrait of his estate near Colchester in Essex, and Constable wanted to fit in everything he could see: the deer park, the lake, the cattle standing in the shallows, a fishing net stretched across the water. When it all would not fit, he sewed strips of extra canvas onto both sides and kept painting. Off to the right, in a little donkey cart, rides the Rebows' young daughter Mary. He married Maria that October.