Bacchic Celebrations
Robert Fagan (1761 - Rome 1816)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1793 - 1795
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1092 x 1435 mm (43 x 56 1/2 in)
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 609085
Caption
Robert Fagan was a somewhat bohemian figure of Irish parentage who lived in Rome from 1784 to 1807, painting portraits, excavating and selling classical sculpture, and dealing in Old Masters. He was Consul General at Naples and Palermo. In 1799 in association with another artist, Charles Grignion (1754-1804), he acquired the two famous Altieri paintings by Claude (1600-1682) and under difficulties shipped them to England where they were bought by William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844). In a fit of melancholia in 1816 he committed suicide by throwing himself out of a window. All four grisailles (monochrome paintings) by him at Attingham were presumably commissioned by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick (1770-1832), on his visit to Italy in July 1792. They were all copied from antique prototypes, this one after a marble relief in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Bacchic Celebrations by Robert Fagan (Cork c.1745 – Rome 1816), 1793/1795. A grisaille overdoor. Four full-length figures, left to right, a female figure, turned to left, head facing, hands upraised holding small cymbals, barefooted, dressed in classical robes, her head rests on Apollo, right, outstretched arm; naked figure of Apollo, facing, head turned to show his left profile, laurel wreath on his head, small drape covering his right thigh and lower legs, his left hand holds a lyre, the bottom of which is supported by the right hand of a naked female who is just rising from a bed/couch on the right, she is turned to the left, her left leg on the floor, her right leg bent under her on the bed, a light drape over the shoulders and left leg, her left hand raised, her head is turned to the right to a naked female who is kneeling on the bed beside her, her body and face in profile to left, a light drape is twisted around her left arm and her falls on the cushion at the head of the bed on the far right.
Provenance
Presumably commissioned by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Lord Berwick (1770-1832) on his visit to Naples in 1792/3; bequeathed to the National Trust in 1947 with the estate, house and contents of Attingham by Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick (1877-1947) on 15th May 1953.
Credit line
Attingham Park, The Berwick Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Robert Fagan (1761 - Rome 1816), artist