Songs: "Ye Gentlemen of England That Live at Ease..."
Medium
Soft-ground etching
Dimensions
Image: 7 7/8 × 10 1/16 in. (20 × 25.5 cm) Sheet: 10 11/16 × 15 1/8 in. (27.2 × 38.4 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Wilbur Macey Stone, 1921
Accession Number
21.94.2(13)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Henry Thomas Alken, a prolific British artist renowned for his lively depictions of sporting life during the Regency era, created this soft-ground etching in 182, published by Thomas McLean.itled *Songs: "Ye Gentlemen England That Live at Ease..."*, it draws from a popular naval ballad praising British sailors, but Alken reimagines it through his signature satirical lens. The image likely captures a chaotic fox hunt or hunt assembly, featuring men and women with hunting horns, evoking the aristocratic pastimes of early 19th-century England amid the social shifts following the Napoleonic Wars. ...
About the Artist
Henry Thomas Alken|Thomas McLean (British|British) · 1785 |1788 –1851 |1875
British, London 1785–1851 London|British, 1788–1875