Life
1767-1816
[occas. Faghan in Italian]; diplomat, archaeologist and amateur portrait-painter;
consul-general in Palermo for Sicily and Ionian islands; took part in
excavations nr. Laurentum with Corbert and Jenkins, resulting in discovery
of the Venus at the Capitoline which William IV presented to the British
Museum; also shared in the discovery of a Mithraeum with statuary at Ostia
Fagan, 1797; travelled to Sicily with family, 1807; conducted archaeological
digs at Tyndaris, 1808, and Selinus, 1809-10; portraits of travelling
English families; purchased Claude’s "Landing of Aeneas"
and ‘Sacrifice of Apollo’ from Prince Altieri and refused to
deliver them up to French authorities, being imprisoned in consequence
but succeeded in conveying the paintings to Palermo; exhibited three portraits
in the Royal Academy; a portrait of "Lady Acton and her Children"
discovered in modern times; the British Library holds his manuscript work,
The Island of Sicily Reflecting its Antiquities; his romantic self-portrait
of self and wife (uncovered) is in the National Gallery of Ireland. DNB
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Criticism
Ann Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Irish
Portraits 1600-1860 [Catalogue] (Belfast: Ulster Museum 1969).
R. Trevelyan, ‘Robert Fagan, an Irish Bohemian in Italy’, in Apollo (Oct. 1972), pp. 19, 298-31.
Notes
W.
B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition
(IAP 1976; this edn. 1984), remarks on Robert Fagan, b. Cork, c.1745,
archaeologist and collector as well as painter; participated in excavations
with Sir Corbet Corbert and Thomas Jenkins nr. Laurentum in the 1790s,
entailing the discovery of the Venus at the Capitoline presented to the
British Library by William the IV. He shared in the discovery of a Mithraeum
with statuary at Ostia Fagan in 1797. In 1807 he went to Sicily with his
family, digging at Tyndaris in 1808 and Selinus in 1809-10. His MS, The
Island of Sicily Reflecting Its Antiquities, is in the British Museum.
Fagan’s name sometimes appears as Faghan in Italian archives. [140;
143]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)