Chester Harding (1792-1866) was an American portrait painter born in Conway, Massachusetts, in 1792. He was raised in upstate New York and worked in several different trades until he became a sign painter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a traveling portrait painter taught him portraiture. He moved to St. Louis and became a professional portrait painter, and made frequent long trips to London where he studied and painted. Harding became successful in society circles in London, painting members of the aristocracy. In 1826 Harding returned to the United States and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1828.

Harding painted several important people throughout his career: James Madison, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and several British Dukes, among others. His portrait of Daniel Webster hangs in the Boston Athenaeum, and other portraits by Harding are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard University Art Museums, the Worcester Art Museum, as well in other American museums. He died in 1866.