FAGAN, Robert

(b. 1761 London, d. 1816 Roma)

Irish painter, archaeologist, and art dealer. Although art historians consistently include Fagan within the ranks of Irish portrait artists, there is no written record of his connection with Ireland, although his father, a Covent Garden baker, was believed to have been born in Cork and Fagan himself claimed to be Irish.

Born in London, he studied drawing and painting at the Royal Academy schools, and in 1783 - after receiving a significant inheritance upon the death of his father - he travelled to Paris and thereafter to Rome, where he spent the remainder of his life. He married twice, both times to Italian women of great beauty, and enjoyed a life full of enterprise and circumstance. As a painter, he specialized in portraiture, acquiring numerous clients from the ranks of fashionable and wealthy visitors to Rome. Among his outstanding works are Portrait of Lady Mainwaring (c.1792-93), Sir Corbet Corbet, His Wife and Dog (c.1797), Self-Portrait With Second Wife (c.1805), and Portrait of Margaret Simpson at Hibernia (c.1805) - the latter complete with harp, wolfhound and shamrock border.

In addition to his career as a portraitist, Fagan bought and sold paintings, as well as ancient sculpture and other antiquities. In his mid-40s he even entered the world of diplomacy when, after considerable string-pulling, he contrived to have himself installed as Consul-General for Sicily. In 1815, at the age of 54, Fagan travelled to England at the request of one of his patrons, to execute a series of classical murals. Failing to complete this work, he returned to Rome, and the following year - in response to mounting financial pressure - committed suicide by jumping from an upstairs window. Today, he is seen as one of the major Irish artists of the 18th century.

Anna Maria Ferri, the Artist's First Wife

Robert Fagan married the seventeen-year-old Anna Maria Aloisia Rosa Ferri on 12 April 1790. The present portrait, depicting Maria in a striking yellow dress with a blue fur-lined cloak and bonnet, may have been painted around the time of their marriage.

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Portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton as Neapolitan Peasant

This three-quarter-length portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton depicts the sitter in her ‘attitude’ as Neapolitan Peasant. The painter gives the place as well as the date of the execution of the picture: it is signed Roma 1793. Fagan was based in Rome from 1793 to 1797, however, up to sometime in 1793 Fagan had resided in Naples where no doubt he sketched Lady Hamilton performing one of her attitudes, completing the work later in the year and signing it from Rome.

Fagan had portrayed Lady Hamilton as a bacchante in an earlier work now in a private collection. Here he shows her in a calmer pose. Emma, with a knowing smile on here face, takes on a more humble, if equally seductive part. She is shown here in the brightly coloured costumes of the south of Italy.

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