Stoke-by-Nayland

In 1810, at the request of his aunt, Martha Smith, Constable painted an altarpiece for the church at Nayland, a village in Suffolk to the west of his native East Bergholt. When visiting his aunt, he would have passed by or through Stoke-by-Nayland. He made three drawings of the village and the church of St. Mary’s in a sketchbook dating to 1810–11. This is the earliest of three oil sketches of the subject. (The others are at Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.)