JOHN CONSTABLE CELLO TO BE PLAYED PUBLICLY AFTER RESTORATION

A cello belonging to the British landscape painter John Constable is to be played in public for the first time in a century following its restoration. The instrument was made in 1802 by John Dunthorne Sr, Constable's neighbour, early mentor and friend. Constable is believed to have played the cello in a local band in East Bergholt, the Suffolk village where he grew up. The cello entered the Ipswich Collection, held by the local council, in 1942, but had been left unplayable following a poor restoration carried out in 1926.

The Friends of Ipswich Museum raised more than £4,000 to fund the instrument's restoration. Emma Roodhouse, a curator at Colchester and Ipswich Museums, confirmed the cello was recorded as having been made specifically for Constable and noted that it survives with all its original fittings. Dunthorne, who worked as a plumber, glazier and carpenter, was also a painter and skilled maker of musical instruments. The two men painted together in the lanes and fields around East Bergholt, and their correspondence documents a long friendship, with Constable writing to Dunthorne in 1799 to report his acceptance into the Royal Academy Schools.

The year 1802, when the cello was made, held broader significance for Constable: he wrote of his ambition to become a "natural painter" and had his first work accepted at the Royal Academy. A sketch of two musicians, including a cellist, appears in one of Constable's sketchbooks, which art historians suggest may depict Constable himself with his instrument. Small wooden figures, believed to have been carved and painted by Constable in his youth, are thought to represent members of the East Bergholt church choir. The restoration returns the cello to playable condition after nearly a century of silence.