A Mill
Medium
Mezzotint on chine collé; first state of five
Dimensions
Image: 5 1/2 × 8 7/16 in. (14 × 21.4 cm) Plate: 7 1/4 × 10 in. (18.4 × 25.4 cm) Sheet: 10 in. × 13 3/4 in. (25.4 × 34.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1931
Accession Number
31.58.13
Tags
Art Historical Context
**A Mill**, a captivating mezzotint created in 1830 by engraver David Lucas after an original composition by John Constable, exemplifies Romantic fascination with the English countryside. Constable, a pioneer of landscape painting, celebrated everyday rural scenes like this watermill, evoking the tranquility and transience of nature. Lucas's print reproduces one of Constable's oil sketches from their collaborative series *English Landscape Scenery*1830–32), making the master's luminous visions accessible through the democratic medium of printmaking. The technique of mezzotint is masterful her...
About the Artist
David Lucas|John Constable · 1802–1881
**David Lucas (1802–1881)** David Lucas was born in 1802 in Geddington Chase, Northamptonshire, the son of a farmer.) A chance encounter in 1820 led him to become a pupil of the renowned engraver Samuel William Reynolds, under whom he apprenticed in London until 1827, mastering the art of mezzotint engraving.) By 1827, Lucas had published his first mezzotints, showcasing his precocious talent for...