The artwork
Study of sky and trees
Oil on paper · Height: 24.1 cm (estimate); Width: 29.8 cm (estimate)
No museum image is reproduced here.
View the museum objectJohn Constable · Victoria and Albert Museum · 151-1888
Study of sky and trees
“September 3d. Noon. very sultry. with large drops of Rain falling on my palate light air from S.W.”
Museum transcription. Source record. Each underlined phrase links to its claim.
The date is disputed. The inscription gives 3 September but no year; the V&A calls the work circa 1821 and says ‘possibly 1821’. The 1821 register is a conditional comparison, not a resolution of the year.
Finding · Nephos analysis · version 2026-09-09
On the conditional 1821 date, Howard records SW and ‘Cloudy and fine at intervals.’ The wind direction partly agrees, but the sources do not establish the rain falling on Constable’s palette, the sultriness or the lightness of the wind. The year remains disputed.
The Nephos method
How this study was read
The method in fullWhat is written
England, 3 September 1821 · disputed, Noon.
September 3d. Noon. very sultry. with large drops of Rain falling on my palate light air from S.W.
Victoria and Albert Museum, 151-1888, as the museum transcribes it
Records of those days
- Luke Howard’s registerPrinted daily wind, thermometer and notes, The Climate of London. Kept at Tottenham or Stratford, not Hampstead.
- 20th Century ReanalysisA modern reconstruction for a 1° cell about 111 by 68 km, estimated from pressure, not observed.
Each claim tested
- “September 3d.” The date is disputed.
- “Noon.” The computed Sun describes the light available at an assumed place and hour.
- “very sultry.” The first thermometer gives daily extremes at a different place.
- “with large drops of Rain falling on my palate” Howard’s day-level note neither reports nor excludes drops of rain at the painter’s position at noon.
- “light air from S.W.” For the conditional 1821 date, Howard records SW, the same direction.
Verdict
On the conditional 1821 date, Howard records SW and ‘Cloudy and fine at intervals.’ The wind direction partly agrees, but the sources do not establish the rain falling on Constable’s palette, the sultriness or the lightness of the wind.
- Partially agrees“light air from S.W.”
- Unknown“September 3d.”, “Noon.”, “very sultry.”, “with large drops of Rain falling on my palate”
01 · The evidence
The claims and their witnesses.
Each phrase of the inscription is a claim. Each column is a witness that never saw the painting, with its own place, scale and limit.
How to read itRead across one row: the phrase Constable wrote, what each witness can say about it, and the verdict on the right. A dash means that witness has nothing to offer on that claim.
| Claim | Howard registerPrinted table · Source | Weather reconstruction20th Century Reanalysis · Source | The sunComputed · Hampstead assumed · Source | Verdict and limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “September 3d.” Unknown |
The register has an entry for this day. Nothing in it names a painter. Page image | — | — | The date is disputed. The inscription gives 3 September but no year; the V&A calls the work circa 1821 and says ‘possibly 1821’. The 1821 register is a conditional comparison, not a resolution of the year. No independent source assembled here dates the painting. Link to claim |
| “Noon.” Unknown |
— | — | 46.0° altitude · 180.4° azimuthAt 12:00 local mean time; Hampstead assumed. Computation. | The computed Sun describes the light available at an assumed place and hour. No independently identified landmark or measured painted solar direction establishes the time of execution. Link to claim |
| “very sultry.” Unknown |
78° / 62°FPage image | Wind from 207° · 3.1 m/s; 75 ± 31% cloud; 21.1 ± 2.7°C12:00 UTC; a regional cell, about 111 × 68 km. Mean and one-sigma spread. Query sources. | — | The first thermometer gives daily extremes at a different place. Neither it nor the regional air temperature defines “sultry”. Link to claim |
| “with large drops of Rain falling on my palate” Unknown |
“Cloudy and fine at intervals.” Note page image. | — | — | Howard’s day-level note neither reports nor excludes drops of rain at the painter’s position at noon. It cannot test this local event. Link to claim |
| “light air from S.W.” Partially agrees |
SWPage image | Wind from 207° · 3.1 m/s; 75 ± 31% cloud; 21.1 ± 2.7°C12:00 UTC; a regional cell, about 111 × 68 km. Mean and one-sigma spread. Query sources. | — | For the conditional 1821 date, Howard records SW, the same direction. His daily wind cell gives no strength and is not an observation at the easel; “light air” remains untested. Link to claim |
Described. Words used by a person in a particular context: the inscription and the printed register. A felt quality cannot be converted into a threshold, and strength words have no shared numerical scale.
Modelled. A reconstruction describes a regional cell. It is not an observation at the easel. No weather agreement independently establishes a painting's date.
02 · The witnesses
What each source can reach.
Howard · 3 September 1821
The printed register
SW · 78° / 62°F
Wind and first thermometer, maximum/minimum for 3 September 1821. Page image.
“Cloudy and fine at intervals.” Note page image.
The table does not establish conditions at Constable’s position. Supplementary Tottenham observations are kept separate from the main register.
The computed sun
46.0° altitude · 180.4° azimuth
At 12:00 local mean time; 51.560° N, 0.165° W is an assumed Hampstead position. No cited source establishes the clock basis; local mean time there trails UTC by about 40 seconds.
A solar calculation supplies no observation of the painting's execution. No painted angular measurement is established here.
Weather reconstruction
Regional context
Wind from 207° · 3.1 m/s; 75 ± 31% cloud; 21.1 ± 2.7°C
12:00 UTC at 52° N, 0° E. Wind speed and bearing calculated from the mean u/v components; component spreads are retained in the query sources. Cloud and temperature show mean and one-sigma spread. This is a 1° cell about 111 × 68 km. No local wind-strength scale or capture cloud measurement is established here.
The disputed date
Museum reading
The date is disputed. The inscription gives 3 September but no year; the V&A calls the work circa 1821 and says ‘possibly 1821’. The 1821 register is a conditional comparison, not a resolution of the year.
Museum recordReynolds reading · unverified
Graham Reynolds, Catalogue of the Constable Collection (1973), no. 221, plate 166; V&A bibliography lists pp. 135, 141, 146–147. The catalogue text was not accessible for an independent reading. No alternative year is attributed to Reynolds here.
Located catalogue; borrowing required03 · Making the artwork
The sky passed through an artist's decisions.
Production uncertainty is separate from weather uncertainty. The located sources do not establish every stage of this object's making, and “unknown” is not evidence that a stage did not happen.
- Locationpartly known
- England The exact easel coordinates are not established; the solar comparison uses the assumed Hampstead position.
- Date evidence
- The date is disputed. The inscription gives 3 September but no year; the V&A calls the work circa 1821 and says ‘possibly 1821’. The 1821 register is a conditional comparison, not a resolution of the year. Museum source.
- Outdoor executionunresolved
- The evidence assembled here does not establish that every passage was executed outdoors in the stated interval.
- Preparatory work and later changesunknown
- No complete sequence or timing of working sessions is established by the sources assembled here. No technical examination of this object is offered.
04 · Revisions
How the reading changed.
- Sources assembled
- The museum transcription is placed beside the independently dated register and modelled context. Catalogue qualifications remain explicit.
- What remains open
- This is the first Nephos record for this object. No earlier verdict is being revised.
05 · Take this into your work
A record you can cite, print or embed.
Cite individual claims by their link, and cite museum and historical sources directly when using their statements. Nephos analysis is independent of the holding institution; image licences are separate from the research text.
Machine-readable
For the Victoria and Albert Museum: this record is for 151-1888. If it is right, link it from your object page; if anything is wrong, write to Nephos and it will be corrected the same day.
The museum’s catalogue remains the authority. Nephos does not claim endorsement.
06 · Sources
Follow every claim.
- M1Victoria and Albert Museum: John Constable, Study of sky and trees, 151-1888. Object page; museum transcription. The inscription supplies 3 September but no year. The year comes from the museum's catalogue date, circa 1821, so the full day is marked disputed.
- H1Luke Howard, The Climate of London, 2nd edition, vol. III (London: Harvey and Darton, 1833); Table CLXXXIV, p. 60; continuation and results, p. 61 Page image. Printed monthly results.
- S1Skyfield 1.55 with JPL DE440. Apparent topocentric Sun without atmospheric refraction. The place and clock basis are assumptions; the calculation is recorded in the JSON-LD record.
- R1NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20th Century Reanalysis v3. tcdc mean · tcdc spread · uwnd mean · uwnd spread · vwnd mean · vwnd spread · air mean · air spread
