Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Sporting Print
Three Steeplechasers Clearing a Ditch
Henry Thomas Alken, oil on canvas, c.1830s · oil on canvas
What it is
Three steeplechasers stretch flat over a ditch, caught by Alken an instant before the landing.
Why it matters
A ditch hid its true width until a horse was already committed to jumping it, which made it as feared among early steeplechasers as any wall or hedge.
What to notice
the trailing horse's hind legs still driving off the near bank while the leaders are already airborne.
A ditch asks the same question a wall does, only lower.
Provenance
- Maker
- Henry Thomas Alken, oil on canvas, c.1830s
- Era
- The Georgian Turf (1750–1837)
- Chapter
- The String at Full Stretch
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Made
- 1835
- Source
- Harris Museum (P1425.1)
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 3× from the surviving 1200×851 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 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Steeplechasing — The Start
‘Elis’, Winner of the St Leger, 1836
Fores’s National Sports — The Run In
The Trotting Mare Nancy Hanks
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.