The Hay Wain — John Constable (1821)

Its farmer barely left home.

The cottage on the left belonged to Willy Lott, a real Suffolk farmer who, according to Constable's friend C.R. Leslie, passed more than eighty years there without ever being away for more than four whole days. Constable actually painted the whole scene from memory and old sketches inside his London studio, not outdoors in Suffolk. When it was shown at the 1824 Paris Salon, it stunned French painters like Delacroix and won Constable a gold medal from the king of France.

• Honest scale — sizes labeled against the original (130.2 × 185.4 cm).
• Verified story — Willy Lott's cottage and the Paris gold medal, per The National Gallery, London.
• Source recorded — public-domain master scan on matte stretched canvas, 0.75″ deep. Made to order.

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