Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, painted in 1816. It is Constable's largest exhibition canvas to be painted mainly outdoors, the first of his large "six-foot" paintings, and the first in the "Stour series" which later included "The Hay Wain". It is owned and exhibited at the Tate Britain gallery in London. "Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River)" is painted in oil on canvas. It depicts a working rural scene from Suffolk, as two lighter barges and their crew progress up the
The Hay Wain Constable, is visible on the far left. The scene takes place near Flatford Mill in Suffolk, though since the Stour forms the border of two counties, the left bank is in Suffolk and the landscape on the right bank is in Essex. "The Hay Wain" is one of a series of paintings by Constable called the "six-footers", large-scale canvasses which he painted for the annual summer exhibitions at the Royal Academy. As with all of the paintings in this series Constable produced a full-scale oil sketch for the work; this is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.