Shooting Scenes – Henry Alken Snr

Grouse Shooting, Partridge Shooting, Pheasant Shooting and Wild Duck Shooting by Henry Alken Senior.

Set of four coloured aquatint engravings by Thomas Sutherland, Published 1st January 1820 by John Hudson, 85 Cheapside Paper, watermarked J Whatman 1820. Probably the finest set of shooting scenes produced during the great period of English Shooting Prints.  Notable for the beauty of the compositions and the quality of the aquatint engraving.

Henry Thomas Alken (1785-1951), was the most famous member of the Alken family. He was a true master draftsman and as comfortable in the medium of oil and watercolor as he was engraving. His hunting and racing prints disseminated his work far and wide through the 1820s and 1830s making him a household name. Often humorous, his prints gently satirised the eccentricities of the upper classes at play. An avid sportsman himself, it is the character which shines through his paintings that is particularly charming.