Portrait by Richard Evans identified (almost)

A major commission by Richard Evans,  his portrait of Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen  (1771 – 1849), first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1827,  has been rediscovered. Actually it had been hiding unattributed  in plain sight in the collection of the museum  in Evans' native  Shrewsbury,  under  the title of  "Portrait of a Naval Gentleman".

Admiral Edward Owen by Richard Evans

Admiral Owen  was born in Newfoundland in 1771, the son of a Welsh Naval officer called William Owen, who has an unusually clear and interesting Wikipedia entry:

Captain William Owen (1737–1778), born in Glan Severn, Montgomeryshire, Wales, of a family of Welsh gentry. He was youngest son of David Owen of Cefn Hafod, Montgomeryshire. He was a member of the Royal Navy and lost his right arm from a wound suffered during the Seven Years' War off Pondicherry when supporting the British East India Company forces in 1760. Not content with the half pension he was receiving, he served as an impress officer. After the war, Owen contacted a former fellow officer, Lord William Campbell, who had recently been appointed governor of Nova Scotia. Late in 1766, Owen travelled with Campbell to Halifax. The following year, as payment for his work in aid of Campbell, he was awarded a large parcel of land. The grant, which included three of his nephews as grantees, was Passamaquoddy Outer Island in Passamaquoddy Bay. In 1770, Owen renamed the island Campobello Island after Lord Campbell; he also took into account the Italian meaning, "fair field", of the new name.

In England, Owen spent some time in Shrewsbury, where he was sworn a freeman of borough on 5th October 1764, and, by then a Captain in the navy, served as Mayor in 1775-76, following which he returned to service in India.  Owen was killed, accidentally,  in Madras, India while carrying dispatches from India to England.

 Owen left on his death two surviving natural sons via Sarah Haslam (latter named Sarah Bagshaw). His eldest son was Edward William Campbell Rich Owen and his younger son was William Fitzwilliam Owen. The latter became sole owner of Campobello Island in 1835 and settled there.

Although Admiral Owen's father was mayor of Shrewsbury, his own connections to the town were rather slight, as William Owen set up Sarah Haslam and his sons in a house near Manchester. A detailed outline of Edward Owens's life can be found on the  History of Parliament website.

Nevertheless, Shrewsbury thought it worthwhile to honour him with a civic portrait. It is mentioned in Henry Pidgeon's " Memorials of Shrewsbury" (1837), amongst a list the paintings due to be installed in the new Guild Hall:

The following portraits, presented to the late corporation, will decorate the walls of the new building : —King Charles I. Charles II. William III. George I. George II. George III. Queen Charlotte, Admiral Benbow (a native of Shrewsbury), the Right Hon. Lord Hill (by Sir William Beechy), and Admiral Owen (by R. Evans, Esq. a towns man). The two latter portraits possess life and spirit in their execution, and are justly esteemed most faithful resemblances of these illustrious heroes and fellow-citizens.

The portraits of Benbow and Hill are both in the collection of the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, so it would make sense to look for Evans' depiction  of Owen there. And the museum's "Portait of a Naval Gentleman" - shown wearing what certainly looks like the regalia of a Knight of the Order of the Bath - seems the only possible candidate

Despite good cirumstantial evidence for the identification of the painting, one slight problem remains: the naval gentleman doesn't look much like the one painting of Owen in the public domain, painted by HW Pickersgill in the year before the admiral's death. In this he looks very pale and worn, in contrast to the massive rubicund figure shown in the portrait at Shewsbury.

Admiral Owen byHW Pickersgill

Fortunately, though, there is a much closer resemblance to an engraving of him as a much younger man, used as the frontispiece of  the first volume of Abraham Crawford's "Reminiscences of a naval officer, during the late war"  (1851). He is only named in an illegible scrawled facsimile signature, and detached from the book this depiction of Owen would be completely unidentifiable. His identity is, though,  confirmed by the declaration  on the title page that memoirs are "embellished with portraits of Admirals Sir Edward Owen and Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew". The engraving of Carew forms the frontispiece of the second volume and there are no other illustrations.

Crawford gives an extensive biography of Owen, which  includes some reminiscences of his striking physical appearance. He remembers from his first meeting:

My new Captain was a man somewhat turned of thirty, with light hair and a fair complexion; having an open and cheerful countenance, with bright blue eyes that bespoke at once intelligence and good-nature. His figure was tall and commanding, with a frame of vast power and strength, exhibiting in his person the semblance of one of those Saxon Thanes who led his followers to the conquest of Britain.

Of the period during which the portrait was painted, Crawford  writes:

When the Lord High Admiral resigned his office, in 1828, Sir Edward Owen became one of the Board of Admiralty which was then formed, with Lord Melville at its head; and in December of the same year he was appointed Commander-in-Chief on the East India station. On my return from the West Indies, in the spring of 1829, I found him at Spithead with his flag on board the 'Southampton,' on the eve of starting for his destination. I immediately got a boat, and went on board to see my old and valued chief I found him, as he always was, kind and affable, and glad to see an old shipmate; and I rejoiced to see that though he had grown much stouter, and years had rounded his person, they had not dimmed the lustre of his eye, nor damped the ardour of his vigorous and ever-active mind.

This bulk is tactfully indicated in Evans's painting.

So why the "almost" in the title of this post? Well, the painting's title on Art UK, and presumably in the museum's records, has recently been changed to "Sir Edward Owen Fisher Hamilton (1854–1944), KCB (?) ". Oh well.

Archer James Oliver: Putting his mother on a pedestal.

A lot of artists must have painted pictures of their mothers. They're available, for a start.  A self portrait with your mother, that's a  much rarer thing. But here we have the once-fashionable, but pretty-much forgotten painter Archer James Oliver painting himself painting his mother, Anna Maria. It's a studio scene, of course, but there's something just very slightly religious about the set up as  well.

Oliver was born in 1774, and christened on October 3rd of that year, at St Mary's church in Whitechapel. He was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 16. From there he had a career that seems to have been  successful for the most part, but is curiously hard to trace.

He exhibited a large number of works at  the Royal Academy showing 210 paintings in all. The first, in 1791 was a self portrait, and his second, the next year, was  a "portrait of a gentleman", apparently a Mr King. His address in these first two years is given as 65 Long Acre. He then moved round the corner to 80 St Martin's Lane, submitting various portraits, whose exact subjects are mostly unrecorded. An exception is that one  of himself and his mother from  1794. It turned up at auction in Paris just over a year ago

By 1803 he was benefiting from aristocratic patronage, showing  a "Portrait of --------- Howard, Esq., of Arundel, representing William de Albini, an English Baron of the beginning of the thirteenth century; to be executed in stained glass, for a window in Arundel Castle" and "A portrait of His Grace, the Duke of Norfolk, representing Robert Fitzwalter, an English Baron of the beginning of the thirteenth century", also destined to be copied onto glass. This is a window from the same series, though I'm not sure if it's after one of Oliver's paintings. Still, they would have been very much along these lines.

The subject of  another Academy exhibit caught my attention too. In 1813 he showed a "Portrait of Sir Paul Baghott, Proxy for Lord Strangford, K.B. at the installation of Knights of the Bath, June 1, 1812, in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster." It's hard to imagine it's not this picture of Baghott hanging unattributed in the museum at Stroud:

Heaven must be missing a portrait painter

Looking up John Prescott Knight in the old DNB, I found a reference to his enthusiasm for the teachings of the Scottish preacher Edward Irving, and the fact that he held "high office" in Irving's Catholic Apostolic church. The author is coy about naming his exact rank, but all is revealed in the memoirs of the Punch writer and farceur Sir Francis Burnand.  

It seems a strange thing to say, but 'tis true nevertheless, that I once had my portrait painted by an Angel. This is an absolute fact. The reader may think that the painter's name was Angel or that it was by M. Angeli, which would be "angels." No. This is how it came about.

Among the many artistic friends of my Uncle Theophilus was John Prescott Knight, R.A., secretary to the Royal Academy, and portrait painter whenever he got the chance of a sitter. I suppose in early days he had done some good work, and had some influential friends on the Academy Council, or otherwise how he could ever have been elected Academician it is difficult, judging from such works of art as I have seen of his, to imagine. My good-natured uncle thought he "owed him a turn," and so gave him the commission to paint my portrait .

J. Prescott Knight was an " Irvingite," that is a follower of the Irving who in the early part (I believe) of the nineteenth century professed to be " inspired," and with his followers to have received the gift of "prophesying with tongues." The Irvingites, when under divine inspiration, spoke as the Spirit moved them, and their unintelligible utterances were translated by other spiritually gifted Irvingites. The Irvingites, or members of the "Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" (most Londoners know the fine building in Gordon Square), were governed by "Angels," and little Knight was "an Angel." In private life I have no doubt he was as excellent a man as he was upright and honourable in his public capacity. He might have been occasionally inspired as an ''Angel'' but very rarely as an artist.

''We"' meaning the Irvingites, he said to me while at work on the picture — " we have restored the Order that was lost in the Roman Church and in the whole Christian world"

" What is that ? " I inquired.

"The Apostles" he replied, painting away quite methodically. "You have bishops, priests, deacons, and so forth; but where are your apostles ? "

I looked as wise as I could, and confined myself to echoing his inquiry. "Ah! where are the apostles?" I asked.

Then he began his exposition of Irvingite doctrine, from which I only gathered that he, personally, appeared entirely satisfied with his own explanation. He ignored the Pope as succeeding to the "prerogatives of St Peter," but saw no sort of difficulty in accepting the teaching of Irving, Angel, preacher, and member of Parliament. I was there to be painted, not to be lectured, and still less to be led into a theological argument. So, though it might have been "pain and grief to me," yet I held my tongue, and I rather think that he congratulated himself on having either secured a convert to his Irvingite creed, or on having silenced me as a Catholic. He evidently saw the Catholic Church as he saw me, that is, from his own point of view, and he painted me as he thought he saw me, the result being a figure intended for a portrait of myself, bearing as much resemblance to the original as did his ideas of the Catholic Church to the Catholic Church itself.

A more notable artistic figure  was less enthusiastic about Irving. AWN Pugin's mother was also a follower, and regularly took the nascent Goth to hear him preach. It was as a  reaction  against this style of worship, that Pugin, according to his friend Benjamin Ferrey, turned to the ritual and colour of Roman Catholicism.

[Sources: Francis Bernand: Records and Reminiscences, volume 2; Benjamin Ferrey: Recollections of A.N. Welby.Pugin, and his Father Augustus Pugin ]

The Head of an Academician

Self portrait by John Prescott Knight

I knew  that Richard Evans (see earlier post) had stopped showing at the Royal Academy following an argument over the hanging - or non-hanging - of his pictures at the Summer Exhibition. I didn't, however, realise that he actually came to blows over the matter, or rather to one single and decisive blow, which he admininstered to the head of the secretary of the Academy, John Prescott Knight. William Powell Frith tells  the story in his autobiography. His racial stereotyping is somewhat misplaced,  Evans having been born,  as far as I know, in Shrewsbury.  The incident actually occured  in April 1849.

A Welshman named Evans, a portrait-painter of merit, had been a pretty constant exhibitor for some years. He assisted Sir Thomas Lawrence, many of whose columns and background-curtains he is said to have painted. I have been told, but I cannot vouch for the truth of it, that all Welshmen are choleric; anyway, Evans was, and when he found that not a single portrait by him was allowed to appear in the exhibition of (about) 1846, he armed himself with a thick stick and took his way to Trafalgar Square, where we were then located.

"Where," said the furious Welshman to the porter, " is your blanked Hanging Committee ?"

"The Hanging Committee, sir ?" said the affrighted porter ; " the gentlemen — the members, sir, are all in the galleries varnishing the pictures, sir."

" Bring one or two of 'em down here," said Evans, as he stood in the hall grasping his cudgel; "fetch 'em, sir, fetch 'em ! I should like the whole lot."

"Oh! it's against orders, sir, I couldn't do that; but here comes Mr. Knight the secretary; perhaps he will do for you ?"

" Do for me?" muttered Evans, as he ground his teeth. " I'm more likely to do for him."

Knight approached :

" What is it ?" said he. " What's the matter ? Ah, good-morning, Mr. Evans."

"Good what! Good-morning — a precious good-morning this for me ; but perhaps you've had nothing to do with this infamous — now, Mr. Secretary, I insist — I want to know all about this! I will see the Hanging Committee or some of 'em. They have turned out my portraits, and I want to — I will know why they did it!"

Evans was a big man; Knight was a little one, but with a courage beyond his size, for he said:

"I can give you every information, Mr. Evans; I was one of the Hanging Committee, and the reason your portraits were rejected exists in the pictures themselves; we did not give them places because we did not think them deserving of  — "

Knight remembered nothing between the utterance of the above and his return to consciousness, when he found himself on the porter's bed, with a large lump upon his head, which one of the porters was tenderly bathing with a mixture effective in all cases of blows or bruises, while sympathetic R.A.'s stood around him. The assassin had disappeared, leaving a heavy cudgel — snapped in two — awful evidence of what the porter called his "wiolence."

How well I remember the whole affair! I was quietly working at my picture, when a member rushing past me, said: "Come along, Frith, come along! somebody has murdered the secretary!" — a startling announcement in the halls devoted to the arts of peace.

Poor Knight looked very rueful, and little consoled by our vows of vengeance — legal vengeance. We would have the wretch before a magistrate; he would get six months' imprisonment at least, without the option of a fine. Or, if the secretary preferred another method of punishment, we would get Baker, the model, who was a pugilist, to thrash Evans within an inch of his Welsh life; or an action should be brought, free of expense to the sufferer — an action for assault and battery: a verdict with a thousand pounds damages would be certain.

Eventually, much to my disappointment, a civil action was brought, with a result so inadequate in our estimation, that we were persuaded that the presiding judge's portrait had been amongst the rejected. One of the Council said he recollected the picture coming before him — he knew the face in a moment; it was a good likeness, though a bad picture, etc., etc. I don't think any of us believed our friend, we thought him mistaken; but there was no mistake about the value a British jury placed upon the head of a Royal Academician. For the sum of twenty pounds — or it might have been twenty-five — any evil-disposed person may indulge himself in breaking the head of anyone amongst the forty whenever he pleases; but, as I have no wish to deceive any rejected one inclined to revenge himself, I have to remind him that though twenty pounds was the price of the amusement forty years ago, it might be more expensive now; but I don't think the heads have risen in value, so the difference of cost is scarcely worth consideration.

Frith was writing in the 1880s. More contemporary accounts give a rather different story, implying that it was indeed, Knight, rather than the whole hanging committee, who was the target of  Evans'  wrath, and that the violence was something of an afterthought. 

Medallion Man

I don't think there can be any doubt this is by Lucius Gahagan, or perhaps at least by a Lucius Gahagan. It's a small circular bronze relief, 17cm across, of the Revd. Francis Skurray (1774--1848). According to Bonhams, who sold it, along with a version in patinated plaster, for £29 in 2004, it's signed on the edge "L. Gahagan, published July 14 1841".

It could hardly be by Lawrence Gahagan, if, as seems generally agreed, he started his career in Dublin 85 years before that. Anyway, Skurray was local to Bath, where Lucius, indeed both Luciuses were based; he was educated there, and his maternal grandfather had been mayor of the city. At the time of his death he was perpetual curate of Horningsham in Wiltshire, and Rector of Winterbourne-cum-Steepleton in Dorset, and of Lullington, Somerset. He was a poet, author of a volume called "Bidcombe Hill, and other Rural Poems", which was sucessful enough to go into three editions, and was something of an art collector, as this view of the interior of the parsonage at Horningsham, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum demonstrates:

A label on the back of the painting says that it shows the "Gothic Room" built for Skurray in 1839, and that the collection illustrated included works by Guercino, Guido Reni ("The Infant Saviour") Titian ("Abelard"), Francesco Solimena (Faith Hope and Charity), Sassoferrato and Ruisdael. Clearly in those days, clergymen were wealthy enough to be able to afford a decent collection, though no doubt some of the attributions were overambitious: I can't, for instance find a single reference to an "Abelard" by Titian.

O, Isis and Osiris

I think I first came across the name of the Gahagan family of sculptors in relation to the figures of Isis and Osiris on the facade of the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly. Built in 1811 to a design  by PF Robinson to house William Bullock's Museum, it was later used for all kinds of things, including, simultaneously, the paintings of  Benjamin Robert Haydon, and the celebrity dwarf "General Tom Thumb". It was  the home of Maskelyne's magic show around the end of the 19th century and demolished about a hundred years ago.

Anyway, squeezed between two plain Georgian facades (actually built at the same time), was a kind of temple front, giving the idea of a kind of Pylon shape, with  two massive figures of Egyptian gods.
The statues now belong to the Museum of London, I must have seen them, as they were, apparently, displayed  near the entrance of the museum for a few years, but they're now in storage [or so I thought: see comments]. They're made of stone, and they're more than three metres high, including the bases  and head-dresses.

They are variously described as being by Sebastian Gahagan, or by his father Lawrence. (The museum attributes them to Lawrence.) Sebastian had two   brothers  called Lucius and Vincent  were also sculptors, and there might have been one or two others; it gets complicated. Sebastian hasn't been written about much, but the outline of his life and work seems fairly clear. He was an assistant to Joseph Nollekens at one point, so he gets some mentions in JT Smith's biography of him (Smith also worked for Nollekens, and  knew Sebastian personally). He did a few high profile commissions: an elaborate monument to  Sir Thomas Picton in St Paul's Cathedral, a statue of the Duke of Kent (Queen Victoria's father) in Portland Place, and one of of George III for the Royal Exchange, presumably destroyed when the building burned down a few years later. These works seem to have had a better critical reaction than a lot of public sculpture, but his career doesn't really ever seem to have taken off. He died in 1838 at the age of  60; he wasn't the one crushed to death by Richard Westmacott's statue of George Canning, but let's leave that for another time.

His father Lawrence is more enigmatic. There seems to be a decent amount of information about him around, but most of it seems to crumble when examined. According to Strickland's 1913 "Dictionary of Irish Artists '', he's first recorded in Dublin  in 1756 as "L. Geoghegan," of Anglesea Street, Dublin. In that year he was given a premium of four pounds by the Dublin Society  for "a piece of Sculpture", probably  a signed and dated marble statuette of Rubens, which, in 1913  belonged to one Mr. W. T. Kirkpatrick of Donacomper, Celbridge.

After this, Strickland says, he went to London,  and altered his surname to "Gahagan." In 1777 he received a "premium" of thirty guineas from the Society of Arts for "a cast of a Figure". Then, in 1798, aged about 63 he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time, showing busts of Admiral Sir Thomas Paisley and Sir (not yet Lord) Horatio Nelson. This version is accepted by "Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851", published on the website of the Henry Moore Foundation, which says "he exhibited sculpture at the Royal Academy from 22 Dean Street in 1798, Pershore Place, New Road in 1800, 5 Little Tichfield Street in 1801 and 12 Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square from 1809 until 1817". But  the Royal Academy catalogues don't refer to "Lawrence Gahagan", merely to "L. Gahagan". The actual identity of the scullptor of the bust of Nelson comes in an advertisement published in the "Morning Chronicle" on 12 April, 1806 (found on the British Library 19th century newspapers database):

LUCIUS GAHAGAN.– respectfully informs the Nobility and Gentry, that he is the only Professional Sculptor who ever was honoured with sittings for a BUST of the great LORD NELSON, having already sold upwards of 300 Casts, and also executed them in Marble and real Bronze, he hopes will be sufficient proof of the likeness being satisfactory. Casts of the above may be had of the Artist, No.5. Bentinck-street, Berwick-street, Soho, and nowhere else. Price one Guinea, or the size of Life Three Guineas each, to be paid for on delivery, The BUST of the Right Hon. WILLIAM PITT will be published in a few days.

Mezzotint after L. Gahagan's bust of Horatio Nelson

So the sculptor of the Nelson bust was Lawrence's son, Lucius, and unless I'm missing something there doesn't seem any reason to assume that the other Royal Academy exhibits weren't by him either. (Obviously, I was hoping I'd made a great art historical disovery, but it turns out that the British Museum have correctly catalogued a mezzotint of Nelson's  bust as showing one by Lucius Gahagan. Oh well). Lucius later left London, and established himself in Bath in around 1820. He seems to have moved west earlier than that though: the Royal Academy catalogue for 1817 list an "L. Gahagan"  of College Green Bristol, and an L. Gahagan Jnr. of Swallow Street in London. The latter is often assumed to be Lucius, but it seems more likely to be his son, Lucius Junior, who later followed his father to Bath. Census records, of at least the versions of them I can get free, say he was in Charlton Kings in 1841 and Bath in 1861.

The "Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain" goes on to say

The full extent of Gahagan’s output cannot be gauged, since most of the works credited to him are undated and are identified only as being by ‘L Gahagan’. Some of these may be by his son, Lucius.

The weakness of the evidence provided for Lawrence's authorship of recorded works makes it seem possible that  this is an understatement. The "Biographical Dictionary" continues:

The title page of a second major source for Lawrence's work, [in addition to the Academy catalogues]the sale catalogue of a Miss Fenton of Chandos House, Westgate Buildings, Bath, also fails to give a full first name. It reads ‘Catalogue of Works of Art ... by the late L. Gahagan, sculptor’. There is a pencilled notation ‘1840’, and if the date is accurate, this opens up the possibility that some of the many busts, a few figures and a number of reliefs may be the work of Lucius. Indeed one of the subjects, a group of Maria Bagnell and her murderer, Gilham (described as Gillingham in the sale catalogue) illustrates a notorious murder that took place in 1828 and so must be by Lucius, for Lawrence had by then been dead eight years. Another subject, a bust of Mayor Goldney of Chippenham, depicts a worthy who did not come into office until 1853. It seems likely that Miss Fenton’s sale was principally of Lawrence’s work, but that Lucius, who, like Miss Fenton, had lodgings in his later years at Chandos House, included some of his own sculpture in the sale, including the Bagnell tableau and Goldney bust. It is possible that sculpture by outsiders was included in the auction and wrongly credited to L Gahagan.

Well, maybe. But it seems a convoluted  way of looking at it. A pencilled date doesn't seem much to go on. It would be much simpler to assume that the catalogue was published after Lucius's death in 1855, and that the collection it lists was all his work. The date of Lucius's death is firmly established by his obituary  from the  published in "Cheltenham Gazette", on the 19th December of that year and reprinted in the "Biographical Dictionary". Apart from the date, it provides more pathos than information:

Dec 14 at Chandos House aged 82, Mr Lucius Gahagan, sculptor of this city. His reward will be hereafter. In this world he has passed a long and strictly virtuous life exemplifying abilities which only the very few appreciated and which the many failed to reward. More than half his life has been, as to worldly means, that of mere subsistence and in poverty he has resigned his temporal difficulties. His son, who inherits his father’s talents and who will, we understand, continue the profession in this city, will, we trust, live to see a change for the better.

To speculate a little, it  seems most plausible that Miss Fenton accepted the sculptures in payment for a debt from the impoverished Lucius and sold them soon after his death. The reference in the catalogue to a group commerating the murder of Maria Bagnall  is interesting. A report in the "The Ipswich Journal" for the 9th February 1828 (but presumably reprinted from a more local paper) shows that Lucius Gagahan's knowledge of the case was unnervingly intimate:

Early on the Monday Morning succeeding the murder, Mr Gahagan, the sculptor, residing in the Walks, took a model of the body of Maria Bagnell as it lay in the kitchen in its blood, and the resemblance in every particular is understood to be remarkably accurate. Mr. G. likewise took a model of her head after the hair was cut off, which shows all the wounds that were inflicted....

Sculptors were used to taking death masks, but this sounds like something beyond the usual call of duty. But back to Lawrence, and the "Biographical Dictionary":

In 1801 he was employed on decorative work at Castle Howard  and in 1806 he submitted a model for the proposed monument to Pitt at Guildhall. His design was rejected and he later wrote to the Committee that he had ‘made four applications at your office for my model, but could not obtain it until last Saturday and then in a very mutilated state’ . Gahagan’s two colossal statues of Isis and Osiris, commissioned in 1811, formed part of the façade of William Bullock’s Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly.

Gahagan was known for his portrait busts of celebrities, many of them produced as multiples available in a variety of materials and sizes. His subjects included members of the Royal family, statesmen, national heroes  and the poet Byron. Mary Anne Clarke, the Duke of York’s mistress, who was depicted like the Antique Clytie, rising ‘roguishly feminine from a sunflower’ .... Madame Catalani was a noted opera singer  and Sir Edward Parry, a famous explorer. Other subjects had a particular appeal for West Country clients: George Whitfield, the preacher and missionary, came from Gloucester, William Jay was a popular Bath preacher and Sir William Struth was Mayor of Bristol. Gahagan’s subjects evidently respected his work, for the Chandos House catalogue relates that in 1798 Lord Nelson honoured the sculptor with seven sittings for his bust, which was later engraved by Barnard. A trade card issued in 1815 by ‘L Gahagan’ informed the public that ‘the only Bust to which His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of all the Russias, ever condescended to sit is on view at the sculptor's study, 12 Cleveland Street, Fitzroy Square’.

Marble bust of Mary-Ann Clarke (National Portrait Gallery, London)

It seems infinitely more likely that these subjects with a West Country appeal were made by Lucius in Bath, than Lawrence, who was never recorded there. Anyway, Lucius specifically identfies himself as the sculptor of the multiple Nelsons, and produced, according to his advertisement, a new bust of Pitt in 1806, the year in which the "Biographical Dictionary" says Lawrence made a model  for a monument at the Guildhall. Neither of the main sources for Lawrence's work, the R.A. catalogues and the Chandos House one seem at all credible  as evidence of his production.

So most if not all the works thought to  be by Lawrence are probably by Lucius. Does that clarify things? Probably not. There are no known works by Lucius Jnr, and its quite possible that some of his father's apparent oeuvre should be given to him.

Who made Isis and Osiris then? Bullock had a connection with the Gahagan family before he opened the Egyptian Hall, having shown the works of one of its members at his previous museum in Liverpool. His 1799 catalogue records a selection of sculptures made, rather bizarrely of rice paste. They include "Busts of the four following British Admirals, modelled from life, in their naval uniforms, by Mr. Gahagan,—Lord Hood, Lord Bridport, Lord Nelson, and Sir Thomas Paisley" and "Rev. Mr. Romaine, from life, by Gahagan." From the inclusion of Nelson, this can only have been Lucius, who also had connections with the Hood family, having made the admiral's monument at the church in Butleigh. 

None of this should be taken as criticism of the "Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851", which is an admirable project, a wonderful and thorough and free thing without which I couldn't have begun to research the subject. And unlike more traditional encyclopedias it provides the evidence for its assertations, for the reader to judge.

Lives of the Artists 1: Richard Evans

Possibly the first of a series of mini-biographies of  randomly chosen less-well known painters.

Richard Evans was born in Shrewsbury. The year is usually given as c. 1783, but census returns indicate a slightly later date, of 1786/7  While young he became a friend of the Birmingham -born artist David Cox. N. Neal Solly, Cox's biographer records that when Evans was in need of money, Cox would lend him pen-and-ink landscapes to to copy and sell, Evans being less competent in the genre.   When Cox moved to London in 1804,  Evans and Charles Barber, the son of Cox's teacher, the Birmingham drawing-master Joseph Barber, both followed him south and took lodgings nearby (whether separately or together isn't clear), and all three would go out sketching together.

Evans became the pupil, and later assistant of  Sir Thomas Lawrence, the leading portrait painter of the time. He was employed painting draperies and backgrounds for Lawrence's works, and making duplicates, especially of   royal subjects. The National Portrait Gallery has Evans' copy of Lawrence's own self-portrait. After  Lawrence's death in 1830, his executors  paid Evans to fnish some of the many unfinished works left in his studio. 

Thomas Campbell, who was at once stage considering a biography of Lawrence said that no-one knew more about Lawrence than Evans, due to his exceptional memory, and his having lived in his master's house for six years. Evans promised to help Campbell with his book when time allowed, but when Campbell asked for assistance again, after a long delay, he found out that Evans had already told his stock of anecdotes to his friend Watts, editor of the "Annual Obituary" to use in his publication. Campbell shelved his plan for lack of  fresh material.

In 1814, Evans took advantage of the cessation of hostilities with France, to visit Paris, where he copied paintings in the Louvre. . Then, in 1816, in a rather surprising episode, he went to Haiti. A revolutionary general, the former slave Henri-Cristophe,  had declared  himself King of Haiti, although he in fact only ruled the northern part, the rest being under the control of his former ally, Alexandre Petion. The King created a system of nobility, and set up  a number of educational institutions, including  an academy of painting and drawing at his palace of Sans Souci of which  Evans was to become head. Evans' involvement   came about through Prince Saunders (Prince being his  given name, and not a  title), a black American activist and educationalist, who, while on a visit to Britain, had been persuaded to take an interest in Haiti by the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. An engraving  of Saunders by Charles Turner (dated August 1816),  after a painting by Evans,  was used as the frontispiece for his "Haitian papers".

The arrangements for Evans' employment in the Caribbean seem to have been a little vague. On July 10th, 1816,  Joseph Farington recorded in his diary a conversation with the sculptor John Charles Felix Rossi, whom Saunders had also invited to Haiti, in his case to make sculpture for the king's building projects.

Rossi called. He informed me that Evans, a young artist, & several other persons conversant in Arts & Sciences, met together at  Mr. Wilberforce's on a day in the last week, and Prince Sanders, the Black Man who lately came from Hayti was of the party. The proposal of Sanders which had been made to the above persons for them to go to Hayti was the matter for consideration & it then appeared that Sanders was not adequately commissioned by Christophe the King of Hayti to engage them, & the conversation with  recommendation to Sanders to return to Hayti for more authority to act in engaging persons to go to Hayti. — Sanders being rather pressed to answer questions which He was not prepared to answer, proposed to adjourn with Mr. Wilberforce only, to another [room] where He would hare something to say to Him.
This Mr. Wilberforce declined, saying that whatever communication He had with Him on the subject must be before the gentlemen present. — Rossi, now sd. that He saw no engagement cd. at present be made with Sanders, and further He had been told that the duration of Christophe's government is considered to be very uncertain. That the Government of France for the purpose of employing troops who wish to be so, proposes to send a considerable force to St. Domingo to support Petion against Christophe & in case of success to appoint Petion, who now favour  the French, to be Governor of that Island.

Despite the level of uncertainty, Evans left for Haiti in the company of Saunders and three other specialists he had engaged in England, an agriculturalist and two schoolmasters, arriving on the  on 21 September. He painted portraits of the Haitian royal family: his first version of  his portrait of the king (now in Puerto Rico)  was sent as a gift to William Wilberforce and another was sent to the Russian Tsar. In 1818 Evans'  pictures of King Henry Christophe  and his son Prince Victor Henry were shown at the Royal Academy.  The reactionary "New Monthly Magazine" praised the works, albeit in  unpleasant terms, saying they were "uncommonly good pictures, and prove that it is not impossible to attach pomp and dignity even unto a negro: they really look very king-like personages".

Presumably Evans returned to England no later than 1820, when Henry Christophe, facing military defeat at the hands of Petion, committed suicide. He was probably back well before that as he showed three portraits with no obvious Haitian connections at the Academy, two of unnamed subjects and one of Thomas Campbell. In 1821 Evans went to Rome in order to make copies, or organise and oversee the copying by Italian specialists, of Raphael's arabesque decorations in the Vatican loggia. They were commissioned by  John Nash, to ornament  his  gallery in Regent Street. After Nash's death the copies were sold to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert) which eventually burnt them in a fit of spring-cleaning in 1960.

In June the  next year he set off for Italy again, this time in the company of his friend William Etty, another former pupil of Lawrence.  Etty at least had only intended to spend about six months abroad, but the trip turned out much longer.The two men travelled overland via Paris  arriving in Rome on 10 August.  After a fortnight, Etty moved on to Naples, leaving Evans in Rome, and  returned a month later. Etty wrote in a letter that "an arrangement has been made that would preclude my staying with him...but I must ever feel much obliged to him. He has gone about with me, and shown me things I should not otherwise have seen".  Evans based himself in Rome,  where he became a member of an academy set up by British artists, with Lawrence's backing but also visited Milan. while Etty spent seven months in Venice.  Evans and Etty were reunited in Florence in the summer of 1823  and after spending two months in Venice finally left for England in October.

While  in Rome he experimented  fresco-painting, and, on leaving the city gave a panel depicting "Ganymede Feeding the Eagle"  to the servant who cleaned his studio. The painting found its way into the possesion of Capranesi, a Roman art dealer, who sold it to  Sir Matthew Ridley in 1836,   claiming that it had been  taken from an ancient tomb in the Via Appia. In 1865, Ridley gave it to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert)  where Evans, to his surprise, found it on displayed as a genuine antique example. He convinced the appropriate authorities that it was his work, and the label was replaced. Two other frescos,  given by Ridley to the British Museum may also be by  Evans.

He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1845, mostly showing  portraits. In 1825 he contributed a "Portrait of an Hindoo" and a double portrait of " Eustratius Rallis and Stamos Nakos, young Greeks now educating at Hazlewood School". In April of that year he wrote Lawrence what, from the summary published on the Academy website, seems to have  been a rather intemperate letter, railing against the conduct of the British artists in Rome, and voicing the suspicion  that Lawrence has turned against him. I don't know if Evans carried on working as Lawrence's assistant after his return from Italy. In 1830 though, after Lawrence's death, he was paid by his executors to complete some the many commisssioned works left unfinished in his studio.

In 1834 he showed a portrait of Harriet Martineau ( now in the National Portrait Gallery) at the Royal Academy. It didn't please its subject at all. She wrote in her autobiography:

I have mentioned Evans’s portrait of me,—of which Sir A. Calcott said to me, “What are your friends about to allow that atrocity to hang there?” We could not help it. Mr. Evans was introduced to me by a mutual acquaintance, on the ground that he was painting portraits for a forthcoming work, and wanted mine. I could not have refused without downright surliness; but it appeared afterwards that the artist had other views. I sat to him as often as he wished, though I heartily disliked the attitude, which was one in which I certainly was never seen. The worst misfortune, however, was that he went on painting and painting at the portrait, long after I had ceased to sit,—the result of which was that the picture came out the “atrocity” that Calcott called it. The artist hawked it about for sale, some years after; and I hope nobody bought it; for my family would be sorry that it should be taken for a representation of me.

Evans carried on showing at the Academy until  1843, mostly portraits, but a couple of mythological subjects crept in, and he also showed  six subject pictures at the British Institution between 1831 and 1856. In the mid-1840s he moved to Southampton, where he continued to paint until his death, at the age of 87, in November 1871.

Capital

I've come across a digitised version of Henry William Inwood's  Erechtheion at Athens. I haven't read a great deal of it yet, but browsng through it shines a bit of light on the  lives of the Inwoods. There's a rather gushing dedication to Lord Colchester.  Before receiving his title in 1817, Colchester - aka. Charles Abbot - had been Speaker of the House of Commons, and seems to have been largely responsible for the clearances of the buildings around the Houses of Parliament,  (or "the great improvements ... round and in the approaches to the senate" as Inwood puts it) to which Henry William and before that his father had been Clerk of the Works. According to  the Penny Cyclopedia, whose account seems to be the main source for the lives of the Inwoods  (even now, more than a hundred and fifty years, later the ODNB recycles it almost word-for-word), William Inwood was steward to Abbot.

Amongst the technical and historical material in the text of The Erechtheion at Athens, there's some information about Inwood's activities in Greece, including,  the acquisition of a capital which nspired some details on his own architectural work. The  Penny Cyclopedia (published by the admirably-named "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge")   gives an account on the variation of the Ionic order which, it says, Inwood used on the portico of the Regent Square chapel   It  is described as one "met with by Mr. Inwood among some fragments on the banks of the Ilissus, near Athens, in which the eye of the volute is remarkably large, and carved into a rosette."  A review in the Gentleman's Magazine, however says that the capital with the rosette was only used in the chancel of the chapel, in an attempt at elegant variation which the writer found "pedantic" and "not altogether accordant with the principles of good taste."

Inwood's own account explains that by the time  he met the capital on the banks of the Ilissus  it had been  incorporated into the wall of a former chapel,  then in use as a shelter for sheep. It  had  previously been sketched by W.J. Bankes, and mentioned in a book by  Sir William Gell, so its pretty clear Inwood knew what he was after .when he penetrated its gloom:

"On further search…on darkest side the darkest side of the shed  within about two feet of the ground, built up in the wall, appeared the front of the present capital, with a part of the plaster that had formed the interior finish of the walls then remaining on it, which had been covered, together with the other masonry and  materials of which the wall was built."

Unlike  previous travellers,  Inwood  wasn't satisfied with making a drawing. He had to have the stone itself . The next section  of his account doesn't  show him in the most attractive light.

"Proceeding to the Athenian city, and imparting to several this discovery , a resident of Athens, of whom a fragment of  a sepulchral stelae had been a few days before purchased,  was deputed to procure it. This he described, could only be done at night, to prevent its being observed and taken possession of by any of the Turks (who would then offer it for exorbitant sale, or exhibit some arbitrary caprice of reserving it), or by any of the members  of a monastery to whom the building might have originally belonged.  He added , however, on that night himself and son would, with the proper tools, and by concealing  in a sack the marble, bring it before the morning."

The "resident  of Athens" succeeded in evading any monks or capricious Turks, and by the next evening it was packed in a case on a steamer bound for Constantinople. A few hours later he discovered that the French consul, M. Fauvel, knew of the capital, had drawn it, and intended to remove it from the shed for his own collection. Whether he  too  was going to use the nocturnal services of  a "resident of Athens" isn't made clear.

"It was impossible not to feel secretly gratified at Mr. Fauvel's, or Mr. Gropius's (who had also a collection of antiquities at Athens) not having possessed themselves of this fragment before."

There were two temples nearby, Inwood tells us, described by Pausanias;  that of  Triptolemus, and what is described as "the naos of Eucleia or eternal fame, dedicated in honour of the victory gained over the Medes at Marathon".  It was noted for the large scale on which the sacrifice of goats that went on there, which makes it  seem a very long way from Regent Square,  I don't know how much the Greek Revivalists worried about  the appropriateness of  their chosen style to church building. Perhaps the Greek inscription, translating as  "May the light of the blessed Gospel thus ever illuminate the dark temples of the Heathen",  carved on the foundation stone of the Inwoods'  St Pancras New Church indicates a certain amount of unease.

The Regent Square chapel was damaged by bombing during the Second World War and  the remains demolished in the 1960s. Ian Nairn's description of it in his book on London makes it sound an admirable ruin,  I wonder if  Inwood thought about how his work would look in ruins, as Soane did  when, not foreseeing  Nemesis in the shape of Herbert Baker, he got Gandy to paint his Bank of England as it might look a  thousand or two years in the future.

 The  capital, with the rest of Inwood's collection of fragments is now in the British Museum, to which he sold it just before setting off on his fatal journey