Constable was as keen to copy Claude’s drawings as he was to make facsimiles of Claude’s paintings. This is a copy of a drawing by Claude that belonged to the artist and President of the Royal Academy, Sir Thomas Lawrence (its present whereabouts unknown). Constable not only followed Claude’s image but, as Michael Kitson has observed: he ‘mimics the French artist’s handling of the pen … uses the same ink and has executed the drawing on old paper’ (M. Kitson, ‘John Constable at the Tate’, Burlington Magazine, CXIII, April 1976, p. 251).