Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) painting during his lifetime, and as a result it became part of the inheritance to his daughter Isabel. In 1888, she bequeathed it on behalf of herself, her sister Maria Louise and their brother Lionel Bicknell to The Tate gallery in London, where it has been displayed ever since. 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"
Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) at East Bergholt, and the last in which the artist painted directly from the scenery of his Suffolk childhood. Constable began the picture a few months before his marriage to Maria Bicknell, writing to her on 12 September 1816: Constable made several drawings and oil sketches of the subject from various angles. Although the final painting was executed largely on the spot, various details were added in the studio later: the boy and the horse; the timberwork in the foreground; the mooring-post on the left. It is known from later x-rays that Constable painted out a horse on the tow-path,