Portrait of Henry Thomas Alken as Ben Tally O (2)

Henry Thomas Alken (12 October 1785 – 7 April 1851) was an English painter and engraver chiefly known as a caricaturist and illustrator of sporting subjects and coaching scenes.R. R. Tatlock
Henry Alken
(The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 37, No. 212, - Nov 1920) pp. 247-254. His most prolific period of painting and drawing occurred between 1816 and 1831.

Life

Grave of Henry Alken in Highgate Cemetery

Alken was born on 12 October 1785 in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buck ...

, and baptised on 6 November at

St James's Church, Piccadilly St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, United Kingdom. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren. Th ...

. He was the third son of Samuel Alken, a sporting artist. Two of his brothers were George and Samuel Alken the Younger, also an artist. In 1789, the Alken family moved from Soho to 2, Francis Street East,

Bedford Square Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England. History Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the square has had many distinguished residents, inclu ...

. Young Henry first studied under his father and then with the miniature painter

John Thomas Barber Beaumont John Thomas Barber Beaumont (1774–1841) was a British army officer, painter, author, and philanthropist. He was successful in the insurance business, and projected a settlement in South America. Life Born John Thomas Barber on 21 December 17 ...

(1774–1841), also known as J. T. Barber. In 1801, Alken sent a miniature portrait of Miss Gubbins to the Royal Academy Exhibition. He exhibited a second miniature at the Royal Academy before abandoning miniature painting and taking on painting and illustrating. Early in his career, he painted sporting subjects under the name of "Ben Tally-O".Ralph Nevill
Old Sporting Prints
in ''The Connoisseur magazine'', 1908 Alken married Maria Gordon on 14 October 1809 at St Clement's Church, Ipswich. On 22 August of the following year later the couple's first son was baptised. Alken went on to father five children, of whom two were artists, Samuel Henry, also a sporting artist, known as Henry Alken junior, and Sefferien junior. From about 1816 onwards Alken "produced an unending stream of paintings, drawings and engravings of every type of field and other sporting activity," and his soft-ground etchings were often colored by hand.Arthur M. Hin
A History of Engraving From the 15th Century to the Year 1914
When Alken was 26, he and his young family lived over a shop in Haymarket that belonged to print publisher Thomas McLean of the "Repository of Wit and Humour." McLean paid Alken a daily wage of thirty shillings, considered a good income at the time. Alken died in April 1851 and was buried on the western side of

Highgate cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

. Although fairly affluent for most of his career, he fell on hard times towards the end of his life and was buried at his daughter's expense.

Work

Alken worked in both oil and

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

and was a skilled

etcher Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

. His earliest productions were published anonymously under the signature of "Ben Tallyho", but in 1816 he issued ''The Beauties & Defects in the Figure of the Horse comparatively delineated'' under his own name. From this date until about 1831, he produced many sets of etchings of sporting subjects mostly coloured and sometimes humorous in character, the principal of which were: ''Humorous Specimens of Riding'' 1821, ''Symptoms of being amazed'' 1822, ''Symptoms of being amused'' 1822, ''Flowers from Nature'' 1823, ''A Touch at the Fine Arts'' 1824, and ''Ideas'' 1830. Besides these he published a series of books: ''Illustrations for Landscape Scenery and Scraps from the Sketch Book of Henry Alken'' in 1823, ''New Sketch Book'' in 1824, ''Sporting Scrap Book'' and ''Shakespeare's Seven Ages'' in 1827, ''Sporting Sketches'' and in 1831 Illustrations to Popular Songs and Illustrations of Don Quixote, the latter engraved by John Christian Zeitter. Alken provided the plates picturing

hunting Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/ tusks, horn/ a ...

, coaching,

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

and steeplechasing for ''The National Sports of Great Britain'' (London, 1821). Alken, known as an avid sportsman, is best remembered for his hunting prints, many of which he engraved himself until the late 1830s. (Charles Lane British Racing Prints pp. 75–76). He created prints for the leading sporting printsellers such as S. and J. Fuller, Thomas McLean, and

Rudolph Ackermann Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Schneeberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London) was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. Biography He attended the Latin school in Stollbe ...

, and often collaborated with his friend the sporting journalist Charles James Apperley (1779–1843), also known as Nimrod. Nimrod's ''Life of a Sportsman'', with 32 etchings by Alken, was published by Ackermann in 1842. In many of his etchings, Alken explored the comic side of riding and satirized the foibles of aristocrats, much in the tradition of other early 19th century omthe oldest of the great foxhound packs in Leicestershire.Fox Hunting and the Ban
(icons.org.uk) A collection of his illustrations can be seen in the print department of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

Gallery

Duck-baiting.jpg, Circa 1820: Duck-baiting by Henry Alken Badger-baiting.jpg, Circa 1823: A scene from ''Badger Baiting'' a series also so called "Master George" by Henry Alken Henry Thomas Alken - Yoi Yoi! At him Hannibal.jpg, March 1, 1825: One of several engravings by Alken at the same time "published ...by S. & J. Fuller, at their Sporting Gallery, 34,

Rathbone Place Rathbone Place is a street in central London that runs roughly north-west from Oxford Street to Percy Street. it is joined on its eastern side by Percy Mews, Gresse Street, and Evelyn Yard. The street is mainly occupied by retail and office p ...

." Henry Thomas Alken, A Steeple Chase. Plate 5, Covering a Strong Bullock fence down for a hundred without any odds on White.jpg, January 1, 1827: ''A Steeple Chase.'' "Plate 5..." of 6 by Henry Alken Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort by Henry Alken.jpg, 1845: Portrait of

Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort Major Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort, KG (5 February 1792 – 17 November 1853), styled Earl of Glamorgan until 1803 and Marquess of Worcester between 1803 and 1835, was a British peer, soldier, and politician. Background Beaufort was t ...

by Henry Alken

Books illustrated by Henry Alken

The National Sports of Great Britain: fifty engravings with descriptions By Henry Thomas Alken, 1903The Life of a Sportsman by NimrodReal Life in London; or The rambles and adventures of Bob Tallyho ..., Volume 2 By Pierce EganThe Art and Practice of Etching by Henry Alken, 1849

References

;Attribution

External links

*
Global GalleryAlken familyBiographyExamples of his paintings and sporting sketches''artnet'' biography
*Set of 4 Steeplechase oil paintings by Henry Alken

https://web.archive.org/web/20120331225453/http://www.nicholasbagshawe.com/view-artwork.asp?id=39&categoryid=&periodid

https://web.archive.org/web/20120331225507/http://www.nicholasbagshawe.com/view-artwork.asp?id=41&categoryid=&periodid=] * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alken, Henry Thomas Animal artists 19th-century English painters English male painters English watercolourists English engravers Military art Painters from London 1785 births 1851 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery Sports artists 19th-century English male artists