Silvester Harding (also Sylvester) (25 July 1745 – 12 August 1809) was an English artist and publisher.
Life
Harding was born at
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme ( RP: , ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. The 2011 census population of the town was 75,082, whilst the wider borough had a population of 1 ...
,
Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
, England, UK, on 25 July 1745. Placed when a child with an uncle in London, at the age of fourteen he ran away and joined a company of actors. In 1775 he returned to London and took to
miniature
A miniature is a small-scale reproduction, or a small version. It may refer to:
* Portrait miniature, a miniature portrait painting
* Miniature art, miniature painting, engraving and sculpture
* Miniature (chess), a masterful chess game or problem ...
-painting, exhibiting at the
Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
in 1776 and in subsequent years.
In 1786 Harding joined his brother
Edward Harding in starting a book and printseller's shop in
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...
, London. In 1792 they moved to 102
Pall Mall, where they carried on a successful business. Before 1798, the brothers dissolved their partnership, Silvester moving to 127 and Edward to 98 Pall Mall.
Harding died on 12 August 1809.
Works
The Hardings published many prints of subjects designed by Silvester and engraved by
Francesco Bartolozzi
__NOTOC__
Francesco Bartolozzi (21 September 1727, in Florence – 7 March 1815, in Lisbon) was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularizing the "crayon" method of engraving.
Early life
Ba ...
,
Jean Marie Delattre,
William Nelson Gardiner
William Nelson Gardiner (1766–1814) was an Irish engraver and bookseller, known for eccentricity.
Life
Born at Dublin on 11 June 1766, he was son of John Gardiner, servant to Judge William Scott (Irish lawyer), William Scott, and Margaret Nelson ...
and others. Silvester Harding concentrated on drawing portraits of theatrical celebrities, and copying historical portraits in
watercolours
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...
which were used to illustrate other works. Their first publication of this kind was ''Shakespeare illustrated by an Assemblage of Portraits and Views appropriated to the whole suite of our Author's Historical Dramas'', consisting of 150 plates, issued in thirty numbers 1789–1793.
They produced also the ''Memoirs of Count Grammont'' (1793); ''The Economy of Human Life'' (1795) with plates by Gardiner from designs by Harding;
Gottfried August Bürger
Gottfried August Bürger (31 December 1747 – 8 June 1794) was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, '' Lenore'', found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English and Russian ada ...
's ''
Leonora'' (1796) translated by
William Robert Spencer
William Robert Spencer (9 January 176922/23 October 1834) was an English poet and wit from the Spencer family.
Life
He was the younger son of Lord Charles Spencer and his wife Mary Beauclerk. He was the grandson of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of M ...
; and
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's ''Fables'' (1797), both illustrated with plates from drawings by
Lady Diana Beauclerk
Lady Diana Beauclerk (''née'' Lady Diana Spencer; other married name Diana St John, Viscountess Bolingbroke; 24 March 1734 – 1 August 1808) was an English noblewoman and artist.
Early life
Beauclerk was born into the Spencer family as the da ...
. The first volume of their extensive series of historical portraits, ''The Biographical Mirrour'', with text by
Francis Godolphin Waldron
Francis Godolphin Waldron (1744–1818) was an English writer and actor, known also as an editor and bookseller.
Life
Waldron became a member of David Garrick's company at Drury Lane, and is heard of on 21 October 1769, when he played a part i ...
, appeared in 1795. Silvester alone continued the ''Biographical Mirrour'', of which he issued the second volume in 1798; the third was ready for publication at the time of his death.
Among other original works by Harding were a portrait of Sir
Busick Harwood
Sir Busick Harwood (1745? – 10 November 1814) was an English physician who became Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge.
Life
The second son of John Harwood of Newmarket, he was born there about 1745. After apprenticeship to an apothecary, he q ...
, M.D., engraved on a large scale in
mezzotint
Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonali ...
by John Jones, and a set of six illustrations to ''Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie'' (the original of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's ''
As You Like It
''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
''), with notes by F. G. Waldron, which were engraved and published by his brother Edward in 1802. The largest of his watercolour copies, ''Charles II receiving the first pine-apple cultivated in England from Rose, the gardener at Dawney Court, Bucks, the seat of the Duchess of Cleveland, from a picture at Strawberry Hill'', was engraved by R. Grave in 1823.
Family
Harding married a daughter of Dr.
William Perfect of
Town Malling
West Malling ( , historically Town Malling) is a market town in the Tonbridge and Malling district of Kent, England. It has a population of 2,590.
Landmarks
West Malling contains several historic buildings, including St Leonard's Tower, a Norma ...
, Kent, by whom he had, with other children,
George Perfect and Edward; the latter engraved some plates for his father's publications, but died at the age of twenty in 1796.
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harding, Silvester
1745 births
1809 deaths
18th-century English painters
English male painters
19th-century English painters
Publishers (people) from London
People from Newcastle-under-Lyme
19th-century English male artists
18th-century English male artists