Constable used this large oil sketch for his 1826 picture A Cornfield (now in the National Gallery). He called it an 'inland - cornfield - a close lane - kind of thing'.

If this sketch was painted from nature rather than in the studio, it was probably painted in 1817, the last long summer Constable spent in Suffolk. It shows Fen Lane, which he used to walk to school. Constable added 'eye-salve' to the finished landscape, including a boy drinking from a stream. This marked his debt to the twin sources of nature and Suffolk - as important as his schoolroom lessons.