Details of Sculptor

Surname

Gahagan

Alternative Surname

First Name

Lawrence

Initial of Surname

G

Year of Birth/Baptism

c1735

Flourished

Year of Death

1820

Biographical Details

The first known member of the Gahagan dynasty of sculptors, Lawrence was born in Ireland, where he won a premium from the Royal Dublin Society in 1756 (3). Shortly afterwards he moved to London and changed his name from Geoghegan to Gahagan. In 1762 he married Phoebe Hunter, with whom he had 4 sons, Charles (born c1765) and Lucius, Vincent and Sebastian Gahagan. It is not known whether Lawrence remained in London throughout his mature years or, like his son Lucius, moved to Bath, but 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.
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. Graves lists 19 works, mostly portrait busts, by ‘L Gahagan’, exhibited at the RA in the years 1798-1817. The title page of a second major source for Lawrence's work, 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.
In 1777 Lawrence was awarded a premium by the Society of Arts for a relief 6 feet high, depicting Alexander exhorting his troops (85). In 1801 he was employed on decorative work at Castle Howard (84) and in 1806 he submitted a model for the proposed monument to Pitt at Guildhall (6). 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’ (Guildhall Committee/Lawrence Gahagan). 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 (8). Though the subjects are Egyptian, their elegantly turned poses and vulnerable faces have affinities to the 18th-century tradition of blackamoor figures.
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 (75, 76), statesmen (42, 44, 68), national heroes (43, 63, 66, 73) and the poet Byron (56). Mary Anne Clarke (53), the Duke of York’s mistress, who was depicted like the Antique Clytie, rising ‘roguishly feminine from a sunflower’ (Kerslake 1966, 162), had used her influence with the Duke to obtain army appointments, a transgression which led to a heated parliamentary enquiry. Madame Catalani was a noted opera singer (69) and Sir Edward Parry, a famous explorer (81). Other subjects had a particular appeal for West Country clients: George Whitfield, the preacher and missionary, came from Gloucester (82), William Jay was a popular Bath preacher (62) and Sir William Struth was Mayor of Bristol (59). 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 (43), 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’ (65) (Heal Coll, BM D.2.1324).
The provision of popular images extended to statuettes, some of which formed an obvious postscript to a well-received bust. Hannah More is best known as a leader of the Sunday School movement (11) and Princess Caribou was a Devonian who famously tricked people into believing she was a Javanese princess (30). Subjects from the Bath Establishment included Ralph Allen of Prior Park (32), the Francis Taylors and the Harding family (14, 28, 29, 34, 35, 37).
Sylvia Allen/IR
Literary References: Graves III, 1905-6, 190, 191; Strickland 1, 1913, 391-392; Kerslake 1966 (1), 159; Gunnis 1968, 160-1; Ward-Jackson 2003, 231-2; SDA
Additional MS sources: Tradecard for ‘L. Gahagan’, undated, BM, Banks Coll, 106.12
Miscellaneous Drawings: Giving the Flitch of Bacon at Dunmow, large drawing, Chandos House sale, untraced
Auction Catalogues: Chandos House, Bath (?1840)
Portraits of the Sculptor: Vincent Gahagan, ‘portrait of his father’, exhib RA, London, 1804 (898), untraced