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[Coaching Scenes, Winter of 1836-7. London: R. Havell, 1837, plates watermarked 1836.]
Details
ALKEN, Henry Thomas (1785-1851)
[Coaching Scenes, Winter of 1836-7. London: R. Havell, 1837, plates watermarked 1836.]
Rare and crisp copy of Alken’s suite of prints depicting one of England’s most severe winters. The weather of 1836 was particularly punishing, a fact reflected in Alken’s compositions that transform England’s countryside into a Baltic landscape, with carriages hyperbolically drowning in white oceans of snow. The Times wrote of this Winter ‘Never before were the London Mails stopped for a whole night within a few miles of the Metropolis’ (The Times, 1836). These snowdrifts extended out into the countryside and reports of the drifts and hollows recorded their depth to be anything from twelve to forty feet. Alken presents the snowy disarray in the same fashion as that of his sporting pictures. He transforms the coach scenes into a British sporting game in which coach divers, alongside their startled passengers, tackle the weather much like the huntsmen would charge over the torrid land of a country estate. Bobins II, 762; Siltzer, p.63.
Oblong quarto (297 x 393mm). Printed on Whatman ‘Bruce’ paper, 6 aquatints coloured by a contemporary hand (repaired tear to plate 2 transecting title and publishing line, tiny restored chip to the bottom of plate 6). Modern maroon half morocco and marbled paper with gilt lettering to spine and cover.
[Coaching Scenes, Winter of 1836-7. London: R. Havell, 1837, plates watermarked 1836.]
Rare and crisp copy of Alken’s suite of prints depicting one of England’s most severe winters. The weather of 1836 was particularly punishing, a fact reflected in Alken’s compositions that transform England’s countryside into a Baltic landscape, with carriages hyperbolically drowning in white oceans of snow. The Times wrote of this Winter ‘Never before were the London Mails stopped for a whole night within a few miles of the Metropolis’ (The Times, 1836). These snowdrifts extended out into the countryside and reports of the drifts and hollows recorded their depth to be anything from twelve to forty feet. Alken presents the snowy disarray in the same fashion as that of his sporting pictures. He transforms the coach scenes into a British sporting game in which coach divers, alongside their startled passengers, tackle the weather much like the huntsmen would charge over the torrid land of a country estate. Bobins II, 762; Siltzer, p.63.
Oblong quarto (297 x 393mm). Printed on Whatman ‘Bruce’ paper, 6 aquatints coloured by a contemporary hand (repaired tear to plate 2 transecting title and publishing line, tiny restored chip to the bottom of plate 6). Modern maroon half morocco and marbled paper with gilt lettering to spine and cover.
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