Verona View (1834) Lithograph painted by a water color, a paper 27,1 x 38,7

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