Near Bettws y Coed, N. Wales, from Picturesque Selections
Medium
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions
Primary support: 28.8 × 38 cm (11 3/8 × 15 in.); Secondary support: 43 × 56 cm (16 15/16 × 22 1/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
127773
Art Historical Context
James Duffield Harding's *Near Bettws y Coed, N. Wales, from Picturesque Selections (1860) captures the rugged beauty of Snowdonia landscape in North Wales, a region celebrated by 19th-century artists for its dramatic scenery. Bettws-y-Coed, nestled amid mountains and rushing rivers, became a pilgrimage site for painters seeking the "picturesque"—a Romantic ideal blending natural sublime with harmonious composition. Harding, a prominent British watercolorist and lithographer, excelled in translating such vistas into accessible prints, making high art available to a wider audience. Printed as ...
About the Artist
James Duffield Harding
James Duffield Harding (1798–1863) was one of the most influential British watercolorists and lithographers of the nineteenth century, whose teaching manuals, technical innovations, and celebrated landscape paintings shaped the practice of drawing across two generations of artists. Born in Deptford, London, he was the son of a drawing master who had studied under Paul Sandby, and received his earl...