Going to Cover

  • About the work
    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. 
  • About the artist
    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.
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  • Details
    Title
    Going to Cover
    Date
    1 August 1821
    Medium
    Coloured aquatint
    Acquisition
    Purchased from F B Daniell, November 1951
    GAC number
    1397