CECIL ALDIN
‘MATED’  & 'REVOKED'
The Chess Game & the card game Whist

SCARCE. Original chromolithographs, First edition, First issue, signed and dated in plate (bottom left) and in graphite (left below image). Good condition and colour. Original period bubble glazing and gilt-lined oak frames, slight ghost browning due to original wood slats on verso.
 15 1/16 x 24 1/8”   (38.2 x 61.3cm.)  excluding letters            [Frame: 24 ½ x 33 ¼”]   

PRICE CODE E   
Ref. M&ST1&2/ARNea/o.ns > GVL Pair DRLN  SOLD

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Published Lawrence & Bullen, London & Washington 1901.  Splendidly captured by Aldin in the classic caricature of a Chess match, is the twinkle in the eye of the victor as he leans back into his wing-back chair to savor his moment of triumph, whilst filling his clay pipe. The awful truth of defeat sinks into the mind of the vanquished, but fortunately the Butler is a step ahead of him as he is already pouring a restorative Brandy. Two household dogs and a cat are witness to the dramatic scene, which takes place in the panelled saloon of an old country house the paneled vestibule is glimpsed through the open door.

Together with: The hotly contested card game of Whist, The master of the hunt has apparently been unable to follow suit and is receiving the ire of his partner (the Bishop) whilst both the squire and captain are delighted at his demise and the latter raises a glass to defeat of the other partners. A spaniel looks up bemused at the spectacle, which takes place in the panelled room of an old country house. The candle lit room is adorned with ancestral portraits and the trappings of English country life.

Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin (1870-1935) was born in Slough, in 1870, and lived near Reading, England. His artistic talent for portraying animals and rural life developed at an early age. He left school at the age of sixteen and, encouraged by his father, a builder by profession but himself a skilled amateur artist, Aldin enrolled in the Royal College of Art. Cecil was later influenced by British sporting artist William Frank Calderon (1865-1943), an artist and teacher who founded The School of Animal Painting in Sussex in 1894 and who was later to teach Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and Lionel Edwards (1878-1966), two famous British sporting artists also at work in the early twentieth century.
A prolific painter, Aldin is known in particular for his sporting art, sensitive depictions of dogs, horses, and hunting scenes in the English countryside. His gaming images such as Chess & Whist are now considered scarce and highly collectable.  He was successful and admired in his own time, as a writer and illustrator of books and magazines, his images becoming more popular with the passage of time. “Cecil Aldin can justly be described as one of the leading spirits in the renaissance of British sporting art” (Alan Horne, The Dictionary of 20th Century British Book Illustrators, p. 67).
But as a painter of renown, he became one of the most popular and successful of all British sporting artists. Aldin is best known for his large prints of hunts, coaching and races. His sporting art featured one of his lifelong passions, hunting. He became famous for his watercolours and humorous prints showing foxhunting scenes in the English countryside, as well as his ability to portray the dogs, horses, and animals that were the protagonists of these scenes. In particular, his special talent in sketching and painting dogs. In a funny pose, the tilt of a head or a cocked ear, Aldin captured the individual character of the many dogs and breeds he worked with. His art shows the camaraderie he felt with his canine friends and models, though his work is never overly cute or sweet.

His serious and exacting portrayal of scenes of hunting, racing and horse portraiture is among the finest in British Sporting Art. Aldin was the Master South Berkshire Hunt. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1898.