J.D.HARDING – HARDING'S PORTFOLIO – original folio 1837 – 22 LITHOGRAPHS
Author J.D. HARDING (James Duffield Harding)
Title Harding's Portfolio
1st Edition. 22 original plates of single tint lithographs, drawn on the stone by James Harding. The views include scenes of Britain (7), France (4), Italy (5) and Germany (6).
Published London, Charles Tilt, 1837 - Large Folio book (37,5 cm x 28 cm) in its original cover, (green cloth and brown half morocco binding) with gilt stamped title on upper board, title in gilt to spine, all edges gilt, yellow endpapers, one page advertisements in the end (about other Harding's works)
Each plate is protected by a blank page
CONTENT : 22 lithographs (out of 24 listed on the front page) printed upon thick woven paper with large full margins.
TheTitle page is missing (which should include vignette illustration n°1 : The Thames near Rotherhithe).
2. Ludgate Hill, London.
3. On the Thames near Gravesend.
4. The Low Fall Aysgarth, Yorkshire.
5. Hastings
6. Arundel Castle.
7. Hastings Beach.
8. Little Hampton, on the Avon.
9. Entrance to Feildskirch.
10. Feildkirch Castle. (along with a lovely 19th century drawing, unfinished copy) see photo
11. Tyrolese Peasants at Maltz.
12. Trento, Tyrol.
13. Boppart, on the Rhine. Missing plate
14. Bacharach on the Rhine.
15. Ehrenfels on the Rhine.
16. Finisso Castle, Val d'Aosta.
17. Croix d'Arrolet, Val Savaranche.
18. Ivrea, Val d'Aosta.
19. Roccabruna, Coast of Genoa.
20. Pallazuolo.
21. Cathedral at Puy, France.
22. Sisteron, South of France.
23. Pont-Neuf, Paris.
24. Rouen.
CONDITION
The Binding is loose, detached from the inside pages, but the cover is still tight.
Some light stains and scratches on both boards.
The leather corners and spine are very rubbed and worn, with leather missing
Title plate and Illustration n°13 are missing out of the 24 originally published.
Some light foxing in the margins.
A scarce portfolio of superb lithographic prints
Harding's folio Sketches at Home and Abroad and imperial quarto Portfolio were in fact published the same year, though the latter is dated 1837. All copies were "tinted in exact imitation of the original drawings," the tint used being yellow, with highlights left in white. Like its predecessor it contains "sketches at home and abroad," the English views,though only seven in number, being the most attractive »
in The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914 by Gordon Norton Ray
Buyers outside France : please ask me for delivery costs to your country
James Duffield Harding
James Duffield Harding (1798 – 4 December 1863), was an English landscape painter, lithographer and author of drawing manuals. His use of tinted papers and opaque paints in watercolour proved influential.
Harding was born at Deptford in 1798, the son of a drawing-master who had been a pupil of Paul Sandby. He was taught perspective by his father, and had lessons from Samuel Prout.At the age of thirteen he exhibited two drawings of buildings in the style of Prout at the Royal Academy.
He was apprenticed to the engraver Charles Pye, but left him after only a year to concentrate on painting watercolours, and when he was 18 he was awarded a silver medal by the Society of Arts. In 1818 he showed with the Society of Painters in Watercolours, (known as the "Old Watercolour Society or OWCS from 1831) for first time. He was to contribute to its exhibitions for the rest of his life. He was elected an associate of the society in 1820 and a full member in 1821. In 1843 he took up oil painting, and exhibited many landscapes in that medium at the Royal Academy. In 1847 he resigned his membership of the OWCS , hoping to be elected a member of the academy; but, after nine years without success, he withdrew his candidature, and was re-elected to the OWCS.
From an early on in his career Harding was a successful and popular teacher. When lithography became popular in Britain, he quickly adopted it as a means of reproducing good examples for the use of pupils and students. His first productions were drawing-books, consisting of pencil sketches and studies of trees; they were printed in tints with two stones, allowing the reproduction of more elaborate drawings. His Sketches at Home and Abroad, a series of fifty plates using this method, was published in 1836. In 1841 he published The Park and the Forest, a set of sketches drawn on the stone with a brush instead of the crayon, a technique of his own invention which he called "lithotint". His other lithographic works included A Series of Subjects from the Works of R. P. Bonington (1829–30); Recollections of India (1847, from drawings by C. S. Hardinge) and Picturesque Selections (1861).
In 1830, Harding exhibited a series of Italian views sketched on papers of various colours and textures, the syyle of which was widely imitated. His use of opaque body colourin watercolour, following the example set by J.M.W. Turner also proved influential. His drawings were praised by John Ruskin in Modern Painters. From the 1830s a range of papers was produced under the name of "JDH pure drawing paper", initially for Winsor and Newton. The papers, which proved popular amongst both amateur and professional artists, and which Harding used himself, were produced in white, and in shades of cream, buff and grey. They were marketed until around 1910. Winsor and Newton also produced pencils under Harding's name.
Harding was a prolific author of educational manuals, and his Lessons on Art, Guide and Companion to Lessons on Art, Elementary Art, or the Use of the Chalk and Lead Pencil advocated and explained, and The Principles and Practice of Art, were widely used both in Britain and abroad. His Drawing Models and Their Uses (1854) describes the use of a range of solid forms which he prepared and marketed.
He was described by Gilbert Redgrave in A History of Water Colour Painting in England as "a skilful and rapid draughtsman, though somewhat mannered, and rarely rising above the commonplace."
from wikipedia