Breaking Cover

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This print is part of a lively series showing hunters wearing their scarlet coats with top hats and yellow gloves. The set of four hand-coloured hunting engravings was produced after original designs by Henry Alken. The engraver Thomas Sutherland produced numerous similar aquatint prints, several of which were also made after works by Alken, including a similar series of four hunting prints published just before this series in 1820–21. 

Henry Thomas Alken was born in Soho, London; the son of artist and printmaker Samuel Alken. His brothers Sefferein and Samuel became sporting artists, while George was a designer and lithographer. Alken studied under his father, followed by miniaturist John Thomas Barber Beaumont. In 1809 he married Maria Gordon of Ipswich, Suffolk, and remained in Ipswich for a time. His five children were all born there. In 1813 his first sporting prints were published. He went on to produce numerous designs for sporting printsellers, using the pseudonym Ben Tally Ho for satirical subjects. He was also a prolific printmaker himself and wrote books on engraving. At his death, he was living in relative poverty with his unmarried daughter in Highgate.
Thomas Sutherland was a prominent aquatint engraver who specialised in sporting, coaching, naval and military subjects, as well as topographical views. His engravings were generally made after the designs of contemporary artists. His best known works are some of the 105 illustrations to Rudolf Ackermann’s ‘The Microcosm of London’ (completed in three volumes in 1810). Sutherland also produced a series of prints based on the Peninsular Battles of 1808 to 1814. He lived and worked in London.

Places

Subjects

horseback, fox hunting, landscape C19th, Victorian Genre, tree, fox, dog, horse, top hat, field, fence

Materials & Techniques

aquatint, coloured aquatint

Artist

Henry Thomas Alken (1785 - 1851)
Thomas Sutherland (1785 - 1838)

Title

Breaking Cover

Date

1 August 1821

Medium

Coloured aquatint

Dimensions

FRAME IN PARTS IN THE WORKSHOP. GLASS AND MOUNT WITH ARTWORK IN PLAN ROOM. 11 NOV 21. M.LINDOP

Acquisition

Purchased from F B Daniell, November 1951

GAC number

1398