Flatford Mill was owned by Constable's father. The house on the left side of the painting belonged to a neighbour, Willy Lott, a
tenant farmer, who was said to have been born in the house and never to have left it for more than four days in his lifetime.
Willy Lott's Cottage still survives practically unaltered, but none of the trees in the painting exist today. Although
The Hay Wain is revered today as one of the greatest British paintings, when it was originally appeared at the
Royal Academy Exhibition of 1821 at
Somerset House (under the title
Landscape: Noon), it failed to find a buyer. ,
Suffolk where
The Hay Wain was painted, now a tourist destination, in 2010. It was considerably better received in France where it was praised by
Théodore Géricault. The painting caused a sensation when it was exhibited, along with
View on the Stour near Dedham and
Yarmouth Jetty, at the
Salon of 1824 in
Paris (it has been suggested that the inclusion of Constable's paintings in the exhibition was a tribute to Géricault, who died early that year). In that exhibition,
The Hay Wain was singled out for a gold medal awarded by
Charles X of France, a cast of which is incorporated into the picture's frame. The works by Constable in the exhibition inspired a new generation of French painters, including
Eugène Delacroix. The French writer
Stendhal, who visited the exhibition, wrote: "We have never seen anything like these pictures before. It is their truthfulness that is so striking." On the death of his friend Mr. Young, Vaughan bought the painting from the former's estate; in 1886, he presented it to the National Gallery in London, where it hangs today. In his will, Vaughan bequeathed the full-scale oil sketch for
The Hay Wain, made with a
palette knife, to the South Kensington Museum (now the
Victoria and Albert Museum).
The Hay Wain was voted the second most popular painting in any British gallery, second only to
Turner's
Fighting Temeraire, in a
2005 poll organised by
BBC Radio 4's
Today programme. A study produced by the charity Art History in Schools suggests that the waggon has stopped in the river to allow the horses to drink and to cool down, but also to expand the
waggon's wheels. The hot weather prevailing at the time of the harvest would cause the wooden wheels to shrink while the iron rims, or tyres, around them would expand, leading the tyres to loosen and wobble. Immersing the wheels in the river addressed the problem by causing the wood to expand and grip the tyres. It notes that such details of agricultural life would have been well known to Constable. On 28 June 2013, a protester, reported to be connected with
Fathers 4 Justice, glued a photograph of a young boy to the painting while it was on display at the National Gallery. The work was not permanently damaged. On 4 July 2022, two
Just Stop Oil protestors attached their own modified "apocalyptic vision of the future" version of the painting to the original and glued themselves to the frame. The National Gallery said the surface
varnish of the painting and its frame suffered minor damage. ==See also==