The Hay Wain The Hay Wain The Hay Wain is a painting by John Constable, finished in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings. Painted in oils on canvas, the work depicts as its central feature three horses pulling what in fact appears to be a wood wain or large farm cart across the river. Willy Lott's Cottage, also the subject of an eponymous painting by
Louis Wain less money than before, due to imprudent investment in a new type of oil lamp. The onset of Wain's schizophrenia may have been precipitated by "Toxoplasma gondii", a parasite which is excreted by cats in their faeces. The theory that toxoplasmosis can trigger schizophrenia is the subject of ongoing research, though the origins of the theory can be traced back as early as 1953. When his sisters could no longer cope with his erratic and occasionally violent behaviour in 1924, Wain was committed to a pauper ward of Springfield Mental Hospital in Tooting. A year later, he was discovered there,