My Egotistigraphy. Prepared for His Family and Friends, by one of his Children.
Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1866. Item #595 8vo. 195 x 130 mm. [7 ¾ x 5 inches]. 185 pp. Original publisher’s cloth; head and tail of spine with s few minor tears, cloth joint expertly repaired; some minor water staining to the margins of the text. This copy has an inscription that appears to be by his daughter Margaret White. Privately printed memoir by one of America’s most prominent portrait painters working before the Civil War. He was elected as an Honorary Member of the National Academy in 1828 after having painted portraits of many notable Americans in the literary, political and social realms. According to Mantle Fielding, Harding was entirely self-taught and during a visit to England create portraits for members of the Royal Family. His daughter Margaret E. White wrote a biography of Harding that was published in 1890.
Chapters include information on his boyhood in Pittsburgh and Paris, Kentucky, his travels to England, life in Sussex, Norfolk, and Glasgow, and his meetings with and portraits of, the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Hamilton, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Carlyle and Archibald Alison. The book also includes his firsthand reminiscences of Washington Allston, John C. Calhoun, John Marshall, General T. Sherman, Daniel Webster, and N. P. Willis, many of whom commission him to paint portraits.
Sabin 30332 “Mr. Harding was an eminent artist.” Fielding, Dictionary of American Artists, p 156.
Price: $300.00