Sporting Satirist (1834)

Henry Thomas Alken prints capture the thrill and the comedy of English country sport. For more than thirty years Alken drew fox hunts in full cry, steeplechasers clearing walls and brooks, shooting parties and coaches racing along frosty roads. His hand-coloured etchings once hung in inns, clubs and country houses across Regency England. Our collection of fine art prints gathers his hunting, racing, shooting and coaching sets.

About Henry Thomas Alken

Henry Thomas Alken was born in Soho, London, on 12 October 1785, the son of the engraver and sporting painter Samuel Alken. He trained first with his father and then with the miniature painter John Thomas Barber Beaumont, and showed a miniature portrait at the Royal Academy in 1801 before turning to sporting pictures.

His first sporting prints came out anonymously under the name "Ben Tallyho". In 1816 he published The Beauties & Defects in the Figure of the Horse under his own name, and from then on "H. Alken" appeared on hundreds of plates. Between 1816 and 1831 he produced a steady stream of etched sets, books and paintings for leading print sellers such as Thomas McLean, S. & J. Fuller and Rudolph Ackermann.

In 1809 he married Maria Gordon in Ipswich, and two of their sons, Samuel Henry and Sefferien, also became artists. Alken kept working into the 1840s, illustrating books by the hunting writer Nimrod and the novelist R. S. Surtees. He fell on hard times late in life and died in April 1851; he is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Style and Subjects

Alken knew how a horse moves, how a rider sits a fence and how a hunt unfolds across a day, and he drew it all with a quick, light line. He favoured soft-ground etching, which gives a soft, pencil-like line, and his prints were coloured by hand in watercolour, often in hunting pinks, fresh greens and earthy browns. He also designed many aquatints that professional engravers cut after his drawings.

He liked to tell a story across a set of plates, following a hunt from the kennel to the kill or a race from the start to the finish. Alongside the serious sporting scenes runs a strong comic streak: riders tumbling into ditches, dandies on borrowed hunters, and gentle jokes at the fashionable young men who hunted around Melton Mowbray.

Famous Works

• The Night Riders of Nacton: The Last Field near Nacton Heath (1839). Cavalry officers in white nightcaps race by moonlight from the Ipswich barracks to Nacton church, in the set also known as The First Steeple-Chase on Record.
• The National Sports of Great Britain: Badger Catching (1821). One of his plates for a large picture book of British field sports.
• Fox-hunting: Breaking Cover (1813). Riders in red coats push out of a wood as the hounds pick up the scent, from a set that follows a hunt from start to finish.
• Leicestershire: Full Cry (1827). A broad, sunny view of the hunt crossing the open grass country of the shires.
• A Meltonian as He Was (1823). A smart rider sits a fine chestnut hunter, part of his gentle satire on the fashionable hunting set of Melton Mowbray.
• Qualified Horses and Unqualified Riders: Topping a Flight of Rails. A plate from one of his best-loved comic sets of riders in trouble.
• Steeplechasing: The Start. The opening plate of a steeplechase series that runs to The Finish.
• The Progress of Steam (late 1820s). A satire imagining the roads full of steam carriages.

Decorating with Alken Prints

Alken's hunting and racing sets are made for hanging in groups. A row of three or four plates from one series, such as the Leicestershire hunt or the Night Riders of Nacton, works well along a hallway, up a staircase or above a sideboard in a dining room. Dark wood or gilt frames suit the traditional country-house look, while a simple black frame with a wide white mount makes the bright hunting pinks stand out in a modern room.

His shooting scenes and horse studies suit a study, library or boot room, and the comic sets, with their tumbling riders and dandies, bring a smile to a downstairs cloakroom, a bar area or a games room.

FAQ

Who was Henry Thomas Alken?

Henry Thomas Alken (1785–1851) was an English sporting artist and etcher, the son of Samuel Alken. He is best known for his hand-coloured prints of fox hunting, steeplechasing, shooting and coaching in Regency England.

What is Henry Alken's most famous work?

His best-known set is The Night Riders of Nacton (1839), published as The First Steeple-Chase on Record. Its four aquatints, engraved by John Harris, show officers racing by moonlight in nightshirts and nightcaps.

Where can I see Henry Alken's original work?

The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven holds one of the largest groups of his paintings, drawings and prints. The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London also hold many of his prints.

What makes Alken's style recognizable?

Look for a quick, light line, hand-coloured hunting pinks and greens, and stories told across a series of plates. Many of his sets have a gentle comic edge, poking fun at riders who fall off or try too hard.

Who was "Ben Tallyho"?

"Ben Tallyho" was the name Alken used for his first sporting prints, before he published under his own name from 1816.

Related Artists

• Samuel Alken: his father, an engraver and sporting painter
• James Pollard: fellow painter of English coaching and racing scenes
• John Ferneley: painter of hunting scenes around Melton Mowbray
• Thomas Rowlandson: Regency caricaturist with a similar comic eye
• George Stubbs: the great English painter of horses from the generation before