Few portraits capture the spirit of Neoclassicism more completely than Robert Fagan's remarkable double portrait of himself and his wife, painted around 1803. It is a picture that rewards prolonged attention, revealing far more than the likenesses of two individuals. In many respects, it serves as a visual manifesto of an entire age.
It is also one of our favourite paintings at Woodbank Press.
At first glance, the composition appears straightforward. Fagan stands before the viewer as a gentleman of the early nineteenth century, dressed according to contemporary fashion. His wife, however, seems to inhabit a different world altogether. Clad in a flowing gown inspired by antique sculpture, she appears less a society woman than a figure drawn from classical mythology.
The contrast is striking and entirely deliberate.
The painting possesses an unusual intimacy. Fagan remains firmly rooted in the modern world, while his wife seems transformed by the imagination of antiquity. Her pose, costume and exposed shoulder recall ancient statuary rather than conventional portraiture. She is presented not simply as the artist's wife, but as an embodiment of classical beauty itself. The portrait exists simultaneously in two worlds — the age of Napoleon and the age of Pericles.
This was no accident.
The portrait was painted at one of the most fascinating moments in European cultural history. Around 1803, Antonio Canova was creating his most celebrated sculptures, John Flaxman was redefining classical design, and Josiah Wedgwood's jasperware continued to bring the imagery of Greece and Rome into fashionable homes. Across Europe, artists, architects, printers and collectors shared a fascination with antiquity.
The world of books was shaped by the same ideals. Giambattista Bodoni in Parma and the Didot family in Paris were producing some of the finest books ever printed. Their typography reflected the same pursuit of harmony, clarity and proportion that animated Neoclassical painting, architecture and decorative art. Looking at Fagan's portrait today, one is reminded that the age which produced such paintings also produced some of the most beautiful books in history.
Fagan himself was a fascinating figure. Born in Ireland, he settled in Italy as a young artist and spent much of his life in Rome, at the centre of the Grand Tour. Yet he was far more than a painter. He advised collectors, dealt in antiquities, and moved among aristocrats, scholars and travellers seeking contact with the ancient world. Later he became British Consul in Sicily, adding another chapter to an unusually adventurous life. According to Raleigh Trevelyan, Fagan occupied a unique position within the international network of artists, antiquarians and collectors that connected Rome with Britain and Ireland.
The collectors who admired Fagan's paintings and acquired antiquities through him often filled their libraries with finely printed editions of Homer, Virgil and Horace. The culture of collecting ancient sculpture and the culture of collecting fine books were, in many respects, expressions of the same ideal. Both reflected a desire to surround oneself with objects that united beauty, learning and craftsmanship.
This is perhaps why the portrait continues to resonate more than two centuries after it was painted. It is easy to imagine it hanging in the library of a Grand Tour collector, surrounded by finely bound volumes and cabinets filled with classical antiquities. More than two centuries later, it still speaks the language of beauty, learning and craftsmanship.
Perhaps that is why we find ourselves returning to it so often. Like the finest books of the period, it reminds us that beauty is not an ornament to life but one of its civilising forces — something worth preserving, studying and passing on.
Source: Raleigh Trevelyan, Robert Fagan: an Irish Bohemian in Italy, Apollo, October 1972.
Above: The Artist and his Wife, c. 1803, by Robert Fagan (1761–1816). Today the painting forms part of the collection of the Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland, where it remains one of the most striking expressions of the Neoclassical imagination. The female sitter is identified as Fagan's second wife, Maria Ludovica Flajani, depicted à la grecque in the fashionable classical style of the period.