Collection Online
The Quarters behind Alresford Hall

The Quarters behind Alresford Hall
(1816)

Medium
oil on canvas

Measurements
33.5 × 51.5 cm

Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of Mrs Ethel Brookman Kirkpatrick, 1958

Gallery location
18th & 19th Century Decorative Arts & Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International

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About this work

In the late summer of 1816, John Constable was invited to paint this small landscape by his patron and friend Major General Francis Slater-Rebow. It depicts the ‘little fishing house’ (now known as the Quarters) at Alresford Hall, Essex. The Quarters had been built for Slater-Rebow’s father-in-law during the 1760s, in the fashionable chinoiserie style. During the mid eighteenth century, Chinese garden pavilions were frequently placed beside water, where they were used for informal parties, fishing or boating.

Artwork Details

Accession Number
78-5

Department
International Painting

This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited

Subjects (general)
Landscape Architecture

Subjects (specific)
Alresford (inhabited place) bird (animal) brooks Chinoiserie garden pavilions reflections (perceived properties) United Kingdom (nation) woodlands (plant communities)

Movements
Romanticism (modern European styles )

Provenance
Collection of Major General Francis Slater-Rebow (1770–1845), Wivenhoe Park and Alresford Hall, Colchester, Essex, 1816–45; collection of Benjamin Brookman; by descent to his son, Benjamin Brookman (d. 1932), London and Australia, c. 1890; by descent to his daughter Florence Brookman (d. 1940), London, 1932–40; by descent into the collection of her sister Ethel Kirkpatrick (d. 1950, née Brookman), London (formerly of Adelaide), 1940–50;  posthumous gift Mrs Ethel Brookman Kirkpatrick to the NGV, 1958.