HARPIGNIES, HENRI (1819-1916), French landscape painter and engraver, born at Valenciennes on June 28, 1819. He took to painting comparatively late in life entering Achard's atelier in Paris at the age of 27. He went to Rome in 185o returning to Paris in 1852. During the next few years he devoted himself to the painting of children in landscape setting. In 1863 he returned to Italy for two years working mainly in Rome, Naples and Capri. He came more and more under the influence of Corot and the water-colours executed during this period are among his finest work. He scored his first great success at the Salon, in 1861, with his "Lisiere de bois sur les bords de l'Allier." After that year he was a regular exhibitor at the old Salon; in 1886 he received his first medal for "Le Soir dans la campagne de Rome," which was acquired for the Luxembourg Gal'ery. Many of his best works were painted at Herisson in the - ;ourbonnais, as well as in the Nivernais and the Auvergne. He died on Aug. 28, 1916 at Saint Prive (Yonne) where he had settled in 1878. His landscapes are distinguished for constructive drawing and breadth of treatment; a silvery tone pervades them.
See Leonce Benldite, Notre Art, Nos Maitres (1923).
or DITAL HARP, one of the many attempts to improve the guitar and to increase its compass, invented in 1798 by Edward Light, and taking the form of a kind of combined guitar and harp. There are 12 catgut strings. A further improve ment was patented in 1816 as the British harp-lute. Other attempts were the lyra-guitarre, which appeared in Germany at the be ginning of the 19th century; the accord-guitarre, towards the middle of the same century; and the keyed guitar.