James Duffield Harding

British (1798-1863)

Born in London in 1798, painter, engraver, teacher and writer James Duffield Harding received his first lessons in painting from his father, J. Harding, and at the age of fourteen, studied watercolor with Samuel Prout. Following an apprenticeship to engraver John Pye, Harding became a skilled lithographer, using the technique to reproduce prints of his own work and as a teaching tool for his students. 

Harding participated in numerous exhibitions at the Royal Academy, The Louvre and Water Colour Society. The French Academie des Beaux-Arts awarded the artist with two gold medals for his lithograph drawings. Harding published his engravings in a number of volumes, including The Tourist in Italy (1831), The Tourist in France (1834), The Park and the Forest (1841), The Principles and the Practice of Art (1845), Elementary Art (1846), Scotland Delineated in a Series of Views (1847) and Lessons on Art (1849).

Harding’s work is held in collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, The Louvre, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Cleveland Museum of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, Harvard University Art Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Norwich Museum, Tate Gallery, The Huntington Library and the Wallace Collection in London.