The painting shows a lane leading from East Bergholt toward Dedham, Essex, and depicts a young shepherd boy drinking from a pool in the heat of summer.

Constable commissioned the engraver David Lucas to produce the plates of the painting for a book, Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery, first published in July 1830.

The art historian Anthony Bailey considers The Cornfield to have "opened the gate through which a great number of people were to pass into Constable's country".

It was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in April 1826, under the title Landscape: Noon, and shown in Paris from early November to the spring of 1828.

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.

[4] 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.

As a schoolboy he had regularly walked along the lane, which was the shortest way from East Bergholt and over New Fen Bridge across to the River Stour toward his school in Dedham.

[18] Constable commissioned the engraver David Lucas to produce the plates of the painting for a book, Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery.

"[20] in 1834, when suffering from depression and seemingly jealous of the success the prints of The Lock and The Cornfield were attracting, Constable argued with Lucas, and complained his works were no longer giving him pleasure.

[21] After Constable's death, James Brook Pulham, a former pupil, borrowed Lucas's prints of The Cornfield and The Lock without permission from the home of the artist.

[22] The prints became well-known during the Victorian era, being images that the public had access to, in contrast with the original oil paintings at the National Gallery.

[24] In September 1827, it went to the Paris Salon,[25] where it was shown to the public from early November to the spring of 1828 under the title Paysage avec figures et animaux.

"[27] When the work was exhibited in London at the British Institution in 1827, Constable included a quotation from a poem by the Scottish poet James Thomson:[9][note 4] A fresher gale Begins to wave the woods and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn.

[13] The art historian Anthony Bailey considers the work to have "opened the gate through which a great number of people were to pass into Constable's country".

[7][27] The committee had initially considered purchasing Constable's Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, but this work was rejected after it was thought to be "too boldly executed".