On your wall
Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Sporting Print
Steeplechasing — The Start
Henry Thomas Alken, graphite and watercolour, early 19th c. · graphite and watercolour
What it is
The field away over the first fence — Alken’s sporting England at full, reckless stretch.
Why it matters
The aquatint era printed the hunt and the chase for every hall in the county; Alken is its laureate.
What to notice
The tangle at the fence — the start is where the race is lost, not won.
Sport begins where prudence retires.
Provenance
- Maker
- Henry Thomas Alken, graphite and watercolour, early 19th c.
- Era
- The Georgian Turf (1750–1837)
- Chapter
- The String at Full Stretch
- Medium
- graphite and watercolour
- Made
- 1830
- Source
- Yale Center for British Art (B2001.2.503 · CC0) · B2001.2.503
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 1.04× from the surviving 5760×3525 scan by AI enhancement (Claid smart-enhance), prepared for the considered detail of a print viewed at distance. The source record above is unchanged — the enhancement serves the wall, not the archive.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-20.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
‘Elis’, Winner of the St Leger, 1836
Fores’s National Sports — The Run In
The Trotting Mare Nancy Hanks
The Horse in Motion — 1878
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.