The New International Encyclopædia/Harding, James Duffield

HARDING, James Duffield (1798-1863). An English landscape painter and teacher, born in Deptford. He first studied painting and engraving, and then took up water-colors and became a member of the Water-Color Society (1821). He was one of the first after Turner to use body-color in this medium, and obtained excellent results with it. His paintings treat European scenes in a rather studied manner. He was the inventor of ‘Harding's papers’ (paper in different tints and textures for sketching), which were used until recently. He gave much attention to lithography, and obtained two gold medals from the Academic des Beaux-Arts for his plates. Among his works in it are Home and Abroad (1836, fifty plates), Park and Forest (1841), and Picturesque Selections (1861). Harding was a successful teacher, and published a number of text-books of no great importance.