Henry Alken 1784/5 – 1851 The High Mettled Racer
Henry Alken Snr. (Seffrien) was a Dane by blood and English by birth. In 1772 they somehow go involved in a plot against Christian 7th Queen, Matilda, which ended up the in beheading of her supposed lover Count Struenzee. The Queen died not long after aged 24.
The Alkens left the country and took a new name from a village 15 miles South West from Aachus in North Jutland. They emigrated to Suffolk, England as political asylum seekers. They moved on to London where Henry’s father set up home.
They were a prodigiously talented family. Henry perhaps the most famous. His artistic output was considerable, his popularity unquestioned. He gave sporting art a new bar to reach, with his elegant horses and beautiful landscapes. Personally he was known for his loyalty, generosity, courage, sense of justice, and personal strength. He tended towards self-consciousness when faced with stranger, and was stern with his children; he was also rather wayward and eccentric.
He married Maria Gordon in Ipswich; they had four children all talented artists, Samuel junior 1784-1825, Henry Thomas 1785-1851, George 1794-1837, and Seffrien John 1796-1857. Henry Thomas had two children Samuel Henry and Seffrien junior. The family were all artistic and left a prodigious amount of work.
It is important to remember that this was a period that produced some of the best sporting artists this country has ever seen. James Seymour, John Wootton, Peter Tillemans, M.B. Chalon, John Leech, Gillray, Henry Bunbury, George Morland, Rowlandson, Abraham Cooper, James Ward, Ben Marshall, to name but a few.
Henry Alken’s work has fineness and a clarity to it, his horses and riders are beautifully described, both as good and bad riders. He is famous for the Vale of Aylesbury Steeplechase, the Sporting Scrap Book, The Mettled Racer, Mail Coach Symptoms and a whole string of other famous volumes recording the life of that period.
References, British Sporting Art, Walter Sparrow
The Dictionary of British Equestrian Artists, Sally Mitchell
The Four Seasons of Sport, John Cadfryn-Roberts, Ariel Press
The Horse in Art, David Livingstone-Learmouth
Racing in Art John Fairley