© Tate
The Glebe Farm shows a view of the farmhouse and church at Langham in Suffolk, not far from East Bergholt where John Constable was born. The composition is known in several versions, the first of which dates from the mid 1820s. This, the last of the known versions, is painted in Constable's rich and expressive later style, notable for its fluid and vibrant brushwork. It was made in connection with his series of prints known as English Landscape in which he sought to demonstrate the 'Chiaroscuro' of nature – 'to show its use and power as a medium of expression, so as to note the day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade'. The picture only became known to Constable scholars in the late 1990s when it was acquired by Sir Edwin Manton and the American Fund for the Tate Gallery. It has now entered the Tate Collection by the terms of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton's Bequest.
