Chester Harding - Springfield, MA - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

A large monument marks the grave of 19th century portrait artist Chester Harding. The monument contains a relief sculpture of an artist's pallet with paint brushed protruding through the finger hole. The pallet is surrounded by laurel leaves with ears of wheat at the bottom and contains the Latin expression:

ARS LONGA
VITA BREVIS

The inscription is Latin quote by the Greek physician Hippocrates. Ars longa, vita brevis is part of a fuller quotation:

"Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile."

An appropriate interpretation would be "it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's art and only a short time put it into practice".

Above the pallet is incised the name CHESTER HARDING

The other side of the monument is inscribed:

☆
CHESTER HARDING
BORN
SEPTEMBER 1•1792
DIED
APRIL 1•1886

CAROLINE MATILDA
WOODRUFF
HIS WIFE
BORN
AUGUST 24•1795
DIED
AUGUST 27•1845
⚓

Description: Chester Harding was a prominent 19th century portrait artist. He painted portraits of many of the prominent men and women of his time including: Presidents James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. Also, he painted portraits of Chief Justice John Marshall, Nicholas Brown, Jr. the co-founder of Brown University, prominent merchant Dudley Leavitt Pickman, Senators Charles Carroll, Daniel Webster, John Randolph and Henry Clay, Vice President John C. Calhoun, U.S. Attorney General William Wirt, poet and artist Washington Allston, the Dukes of Norfolk, Hamilton, and Sussex, poet Samuel Rogers, frontiersman Daniel Boone, and General William T. Sherman. Date of birth: 09/01/1792 Date of death: 04/01/1886 Area of notoriety: Art Marker Type: Monument Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: daylight hours Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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