John Harris, Jr.

John Harris Jr. (17 November 1791 – 28 December 1873), was an English artist who specialised in pen-and-ink facsimile work, and Masonic catechetical designs. His son, also John Harris, continued his work after Harris himself became incapacitated, and after his death.

Facsimiles Harris earned his income as an artist chiefly from the production of facsimiles, used to replace pages (or entire sections) of books which had been damaged or become decayed. Harris himself suggested that the process of replacing damaged pages with facsimile reproductions was first popularised by George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer, who commissioned such work through Harris's employer, John Whittaker.

During his time working at the British Museum (from 1820 onwards), Harris repaired or replaced sections of many books in the national collection, and contemporary reports state that his facsimile work was entirely indistinguishable from the original. A British Museum colleague, Robert Cowtan, gave an account of the examination of a book from the national collection by the British Museum's foremost book experts, Messrs Panizzi, Jones, and Watts, and their abject failure to discover the reproduced sections. "After a fruitless search, page by page, the consultation ended in a summons to Mr. Harris himself to point out the leaves that he had supplied." Cowtan also stated of Harris, "In this curious art he is probably unrivalled....and some of the leaves that he has supplied are so perfectly done that, after a few years, he has himself been puzzled to distinguish his own work from the original, so perfect has the facsimile been, both in paper and typography." at a time when the United Grand Lodge of England was encouraging all masonic lodges to move from Tracing boards chalked on the floor, or painted onto cloths, towards permanent painted and framed boards, displayed in lodge rooms. Harris quickly became fascinated by masonic tracing boards, and painted large numbers of boards for each of the three degrees of Freemasonry, in multiple different designs. Many of his boards remain extant, and Harris made a significant income from designing and selling the boards. In 1823 he dedicated a set of miniature tracing boards to Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge, which further enhanced his reputation. The enormous original boards are still in use by the Emulation Lodge of Improvement, and may be viewed weekly, although they are sealed in protective glass cases.

Private life Harris's painting of the opening of the Dublin & Kingstown Railway in 1834. Harris was married in 1820.