Lot 12: Samuel Alken , 1756-1815 Full Cry oil on canvas

signed l.r.: S. Alken oil on canvas

61 by 92cm., 24 by 36¼in.

HRH The Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, KG, KT, KP (1900-1974), Barnwell Manor, Northamptonshire;
Sale, Christie's London, 25th and 26th January 2006, lot 202, bt. by the present owner

Samuel Alken was born in 1756 at 3 Dufours Place, near Golden Square, Westminster and trained as an architect. He was the son of the stone and woodcarver Sefferein Alken Snr (1717-1782), who immigrated to London from Denmark, and his second wife Anne. Following a brief start as an architectural draftsman, publishing in 1779 A New Book of Ornaments, he transferred his talents to the art of sporting scenes, producing oils, watercolours, aquatints and etchings. The chief beauty of many sporting scenes from the late eighteenth century lies in their landscapes and Alken became a respected master of the genre, renowned for his atmospheric settings. His knowledge and understanding of landscape was greatly inspired by his work on views of the Lake District, Wales, Ireland and Switzerland after William Gilpin as well as his own compositions from life. As with the present example his pictures are charged with the thrill of the chase and the evocative idyll of a quintessentially British scene.