# Sketch for The Leaping Horse [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CONSTABLE, John]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 129 x 188 cm ## Commentary For some of his large canvases Constable painted full-size oil sketches, The Leaping Horse being an example. Here he has tried to freeze a sudden action - the leap of a barge horse over a cattle barrier on the Stour towpath. But to the modern observer his own description of the picture, written shortly before it was ready for the 1825 Academy exhibition - 'calm & exhilarating, fresh & blowing' - applies more happily to the sketch; the greatest sufferer in the finished canvas is the sky, which has lost its bubbling clouds. ## Related artworks - [A Boat at the Sluice \(sketch\)]() - [A Lane near Flatford]() - [Boat-building near Flatford Mill]() - [Dedham Lock and Mill]() - [Dedham Vale]() - [Dedham Vale with the River Stour in Flood \(detail\)]() - [Dedham Vale with the River Stour in Flood]() - [Flatford Mill \(detail\)]() - [Flatford Mill from a Lock on the Stour]() - [Flatford Mill]() - [Helmingham Dell]() - [Malvern Hall in Warwickshire]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()