While staying with Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall in
October–November 1823 Constable made these copies of etchings by
Alexander Cozens (1717–1786), his Various Species of Composition
in Nature sixteen subjects in four plates, with Observations and
Instructions in Beaumont’s collection. Constable’s drawings
differ from the set of Cozens’s etchings in the collection of
the British Museum in showing additional tonal areas of grey
wash, which add atmosphere and chiaroscuro not found in the
originals. In making these drawings more than thirty years after
Cozens’s death Constable showed his admiration for the work of
this late eighteenth-century artist and for his passion for
categorising and interpreting nature. He also acknowledged
Beaumont’s affection for Cozens, his drawing master at Eton. At
Coleorton Constable also studied Cozens’s list of twenty-seven
types of ‘Circumstance’ in nature, consisting of accidents
(wind, rain, storm etc.), seasons (spring, autumn etc.) and
characters (time of day such as ‘