Anyone who wants to learn how to paint a horse at full gallop would do best to study under the British painter and printmaker Henry Thomas Alken. A picture such as “Full Cry, c.1840” - named for the English hunting term “full cry” - demonstrates the task: a grey and a chestnut stretch out across the meadow, one rider sits deep in the saddle in a red coat, the other waves his hat as he leaps, the pack streams away to the right like a mottled chain, and at the edge of the picture a farm labourer pauses with his spade to watch. Everything is in motion, and yet every leg, every hoof, every fetlock is right - the slender joint above the hoof. The first lesson, then: speed comes from precision.
Second lesson: origins. Across four generations, the London Alken family produced eight documented artists. Henry Thomas, born in Soho on 12 October 1785, was the third son of Samuel Alken, who also painted hunting and sporting scenes and engraved them in aquatint, an etching technique used to create soft, even tones; two of his brothers painted as well, as did his own sons later. He first trained at home, then with the miniature painter John Thomas Barber Beaumont; two of his portrait miniatures were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801 and 1802, after which he abandoned the small format. Yet the miniaturist's training remained in his hand: it can be seen in the finger-sized hounds in his hunting pictures, each individually delineated, with its own markings and gait.
Third lesson: a name is a tool. His earliest sporting prints, beginning in 1813, bear the signature of an invented figure, “Ben Tally Ho” - named after the cry with which English hunters announce the fox, and well suited to gentle satire. From 1816 onward he signed his own name, and business flourished: the young father lived above the shop of the publisher Thomas McLean in the Haymarket and supplied drawings for 30 shillings a day, a very good income at the time. In 1821 McLean published his principal work, “The National Sports of Great Britain”, fifty hand-coloured aquatint plates covering everything England then considered sport, from horse racing and foxhunting to fishing, prizefighting and cockfighting - a clear-eyed inventory of the sporting culture of his time.
Fourth lesson, and the most important: the wit belongs to the people, never to the horses. Alken worked in both registers with the same hand, producing noble hunting series as readily as albums of caricatures, and the two meet most beautifully in his plates devoted to Mr Jorrocks - a fictional character created by the writer Robert Smith Surtees, a London grocer obsessed with hunting. In “Lift Me Up! Tie Me in My Chair! Fill My Glass!”, Jorrocks lounges blissfully askew in his armchair after a day's hunting, his legs stretched wide apart, while the company around the table raises its glasses; on the wall, as propriety demands, hang two hunting pictures in gold frames. The title is Jorrocks's own heartfelt sigh, and Alken laughs with his exhausted hero rather than at him.
Fifth lesson: a signature offers only limited protection against confusion. Because so many members of the Alken family painted and numerous works are signed simply “Alken”, the art trade has spent generations puzzling over which hand painted which picture; his son Samuel Henry sometimes used the deceptively similar signature “H. Alken”, and one rule of thumb among dealers holds that ladies riding sidesaddle are more likely to indicate the son. “The Start of the Derby” shows how customers recognised their Alken: a field of jockeys knee to knee, their silks green, red, blue and yellow, the horses fully extended, one second before the race breaks apart. And in “Hunting Scene”, red coats and the mottled pack sweep together across the green - the fever of a hunting morning condensed onto a small panel.
Sixth lesson: the material. Alken's scenes in oil thrive on dark horses' bodies, the single rich red of the coats and the changing light across the meadow; as an art print, this painting requires a support capable of carrying such contrasts. We therefore prefer to print them on lightly glossy canvas: the subtle sheen keeps the blacks deep and gives the red its luminosity.
Alken himself gave the final lesson. In 1849, long ill and impoverished - why the prosperity of his successful years had vanished is not recorded - he summarised in 58 pages what forty years in the workshop had taught him: “The Art and Practice of Etching”, a practical etching manual for beginners. The second edition appeared in 1851, and by then the master had little time left: he died in London on 7 April 1851. His grave is in London's Highgate Cemetery; his family paid for the funeral.
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.jpg "Full Cry, c.1840 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Start of the Derby by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Lift Me Up! Tie Me in My Chair! Fill My Glass! by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Illustration to R.S. Surtees")
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.jpg "The St. Leger, Doncaster: Preparing to Start by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Steeplechasing: The Field Coming up to a Ditch by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Two Riders Taking a Double Fence by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Jumping a Low Rail and a Brook by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Qualified Horses and Unqualified Riders:")
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.jpg "Head of a Foxhound, in Profile Right by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Topping a Park Fence and Doing the Thing Easy by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Foxhunting: Gone to Ground by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Rider on a Brown Horse Going at a Wall by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Steeplechasing: The Field Jumping In and Out of a Lane by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "A Whipper-In and a Couple of Hounds Running Hard in Open Country by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene, Drawing the Cover by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Scenes from a Steeplechase: Near the Finish by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Foxhunting: Gone Away by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Jumping a Double Oxer - A Rider in Difficulties by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Scenes From a Steeplechase: Another Hedge by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Wild Duck Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Qualified Horses and Unqualified Riders: Facing a Brook Verifying the Old Adage, Look Before You Leap by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1130918).jpg "Coaching Scene by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Set of Seven: The Seven Ages of the Horse by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Set of Seven: Shakespeare")
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.jpg "Badger Catching, 1820 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: In Full Cry by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Grand Leicestershire Steeplechase, March 12, 1829: The Climax of Disaster by Henry Thomas Alken")
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![Horses [set of six]: 5. Charger by Henry Thomas Alken](/kunstwerke/400w/Henry_Thomas_Alken_-_Horses_set_of_six_5_Charger_-_(MeisterDrucke-1716088).jpg)
![Set of Twelve [Scenes in the Life of Master George] by Henry Thomas Alken](/kunstwerke/300px/Henry_Thomas_Alken_-_Set_of_twelve_Scenes_in_the_Life_of_Master_George_-_(MeisterDrucke-1715125).jpg "Set of Twelve [Scenes in the Life of Master George] by Henry Thomas Alken")
![Set of Twelve [Scenes in the Life of Master George] by Henry Thomas Alken](/kunstwerke/400w/Henry_Thomas_Alken_-_Set_of_twelve_Scenes_in_the_Life_of_Master_George_-_(MeisterDrucke-1715125).jpg)
.jpg "Scenes from a Steeplechase: Taking a Hedge by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Foxhunting: The Death by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Chase of the Roebuck by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: In Full Cry by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "\"Some Do and Some Don")
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.jpg "Winning of the Derby by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Grand Leicestershire Steeplechase, March 12th, 1829: Dick Christian")
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.jpg "A Coach and Four on an Autumn Road by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Over the Fence by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Duck Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Earth Stopper by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Kill by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Partridge Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Set of Six with Printed Wrapper, and Title-Page: Shooting, or One Day")
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.jpg "Waterjump, c.1840 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Set of Twelve with Title-Page: Sporting Satirist by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Finish, c.1840 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Foxhunting: Full Cry by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Illustration for R.S. Surtees")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: The Kill by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Partridge Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Pleasures of a Margate Steam Packet, 1838 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: The Death by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Getting Across the Country Like a Gentleman by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Tally Ho! by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Foxhunting: The Death by Henry Thomas Alken")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-115386).jpg "Morning Ride, Original Drawing for Plate 12 of")
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.jpg "Partridge Shooting, ca. 1825 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Illustration from")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: Drawing the Cover by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Death by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Grouse Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Grouse Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Set of Twelve Scenes in the Life of Master George by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Notorious Black Billy")
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.jpg "Grouse Shooting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1425819).jpg "The Chase by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-313803).jpg "A Prize Fight, aquatinted by I. Clark, pub. by Thomas McLean by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Liverpool Mail Near St. Albans, c19th century by Robert Havell")
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.jpg "A Steeplechase: Crossing a Deep Ravine Dangerous to Pass by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Table d")
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.jpg "Scenes from a Steeplechase: The Winner by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: The Kill by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "A Steeplechase, Taking a Hedge and Ditch by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1425494).jpg "The Kill by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "John Jorrocks, Esq., M.S.H., etc., etc., etc., etc. A Citizen of Credit of Renown by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-314471).jpg "Bull Baiting, pub. by Thomas McLean, 1820 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Three Racehorses with Jockeys Galloping to the Left by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Fox Hunting: Leaping the Brook, 1906 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Head of a Pointer, in Profile Left by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Scenes from a Steeplechase: Taking a Hedge by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: Drawing the Cover by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene: The Kill by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Chase of the Roebuck by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Hull Mail on the Open Road by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Officer, Life Guards, 1909 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1172584).jpg "The Oakley Hunt by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "The Infant by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hunting Scene, In Full Cry by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Full Cry, c1820 by Henry Thomas Alken")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-298680).jpg "Fox Hunting by Henry Thomas Alken")
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.jpg "Hull to London Coach by Henry Thomas Alken")
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