Constable completed the painting from earlier drawings after the mill burned down in 1825.

After his education at schools in Lavenham and Dedham, Constable worked in his father's corn business, but his younger brother Abram eventually took over the running of the mills.

[5] The year The Cornfield was painted, Constable was 50 and had not yet been accepted as a full member of the Royal Academy of Arts, despite having sought election since the early 1820s.

[6] Parham Mill is an 1826 landscape painting by the English artist John Constable.

In 1823 Constable was staying with his friend John Fisher, a nephew of the Bishop of Salisbury.