Follower of John Constable, mid 19th Century 'The Lock Gates' POA
Follower of John Constable, mid 19th Century 'The Lock Gates' POA
A landscape painting with a likely attribution to Robert Burrows of Ipswich (1810-1883), the work sees him as paying homage to his great artistic hero, John Constable (1776 – 1837).
Oil on canvas. Size: unframed, 57 inches (144cm) high; 45 inches (115cm) wide; now housed in a handsome profusely carved and gilded frame
Burrows was also much influenced by the Norwich Society - known as the Norwich School from 1805 - their low-key realist paintings inspired by the Norfolk landscape and the life of the Norfolk Broads and rivers.
The East Anglian landscape is well represented in this picture: the distant view of the riverside windmill framed by tall trees in full leaf, the lock gates and vegetation to the foreground shown in detail, and the sky dramatised by towering clouds. Peopled by well observed ordinary working folk: one boatman shown paying the old lock-keeper his due, the barge horse, horseman and boy behind waiting patiently on the towpath and the lock-keeper’s man leaning impassively on the lock-gate. Interestingly the canvas is of very similar dimensions to two of Constable’s most feted works, ‘The Cornfield’ (National Gallery) and ‘The Vale of Dedham’ (National Gallery of Scotland).
Provenance: Private Collection, London
Stock Number: VT20326
🔶 On Consignment
Robert Burrows [1810-1883] was the son of a silversmith, also Robert Burrows, proprietor of a workshop in the Old Cattle Market in the centre of Ipswich. As an artist, young Burrows took his lead from the work of two leading Norwich School painters, particularly John Crome and his son John Berney Crome, but his landscapes still owe much to the influence of Suffolk’s most celebrated artists, Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) and John Constable (1776-1837).
Burrows joined the newly formed Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists in 1832 and by mid century had succeeded in having two landscapes accepted for view at the Royal Academy. He was a friend of Edward Smythe, always a determined recorder of the working Suffolk landscape, and by 1869 was painting full-time. .Several works by Burrows are held at the Christchurch Mansion Museum and Art Gallery, Ipswich
In the 18th Century the rivers of Suffolk and Norfolk were working navigations. The paintings of John Constable provide great insight into the trade on the River Stour for his father was one of the navigation commissioners on the river and also owned mills at Dedham and Flatford The Stour was a busy waterway – a vital conduit for the goods sustaining lives and businesses across south Suffolk. Horse-drawn barges plied between the docks at Mistley and Sudbury taking coal, oil and sugar upstream and returning down river with products like bricks and malt.
Rather than the Stour, our picture could be a view of a lock on the Stowmarket Navigation - a system of 15 locks covering the 16 mile length of the River Gipping which flows east from Stowmarket to Ipswich and becomes the Orwell at the Port of Ipswich. The Navigation was a typical and rather wonderful 18th Century feat of engineering, its flights of locks designed to overcome the 90 foot rise in the river that existed between the two towns. Once it was built, a forty tonne horse drawn lighter could complete the distance in only 8 hours, lowering transport costs dramatically.
By mid 19th Century the railway network was taking precedence and profit, thereby overseeing a decline in water-borne trade. By the time Burrows was at the height of his painting career the Stowmarket Navigation was falling into disrepair as a practical waterway. Although for an artist It had perhaps taken on a new role, providing a picturesque and also romantically nostalgic view of the working countryside.
