Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Sporting Print
Two Steeplechasers Clearing a Wall, with Two Steeplechasers in the Middle Distance
Henry Thomas Alken, oil on canvas, c.1830s · oil on canvas
What it is
Two steeplechasers rise together over a stone wall while two more riders close in behind them.
Why it matters
A stone wall, not a brush fence, was the hardest natural obstacle steeplechasing offered in Alken's day, and he returned to it because it was the jump that separated a galloping horse from a jumping one.
What to notice
daylight showing clean under all four hooves of the leading horse at the wall's top.
Some ground refuses to bend for speed.
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 (P1425.4)
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 3× from the surviving 1200×859 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.