Details of Sculptor

Surname

Gahagan

Alternative Surname

First Name

Lucius

Initial of Surname

G

Year of Birth/Baptism

1773

Flourished

Year of Death

1855

Biographical Details

Lucius was the second son of Lawrence Gahagan and the brother of Vincent and Sebastian Gahagan. He married Sarah Proudman in 1794 and they had four children, two of whom appear to have had minor careers as sculptors. It is likely that ‘Gahagan L, junr’, who exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817, was Lucius (12). On this occasion he gave his address as 9 Swallow Street, London and he is thought to have moved to Bath around 1820, where he lived in a house called ‘Lo Studio’. He later took rooms at Chandos House, Westgate Buildings, a large dwelling in the centre of Bath, designed as lodgings by John Wood the Elder in 1828-30. Here Gahagan must have come to know a fellow lodger, Miss Fenton. The auction of Miss Fenton’s ‘Works of Art ... by the late L. Gahagan, sculptor’, which appears to have taken place in 1840, was principally of sculpture by Lawrence Gahagan, but probably also included works by Lucius. Among these was a statuette commemorating the notorious murder in 1828 of Maria Bagnell (9).
Gahagan was responsible for some satisfying architectural sculpture (18-20) and for works in bronze and plaster as well as marble. He appears also to have worked in wax, for in an undated letter, a correspondent writing to Joseph Nollekens said that ‘Lady Holland wants a good modeller in wax’. On the bottom of this letter Nollekens noted that he had recommended Lucius Gahagan (Nollekens Sketchbook, Ashm, in GPC). His few known monuments, which have ‘of Bath’ appended to the signature, are well-carved, but conventional classicising exercises. A characteristic example, to Archdeacon Thomas in Bath Abbey, has a figure of Faith standing by a column (3).
Gahagan appears to have produced relatively little work during his long life and his obituary in the Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, published on 19 December 1855, relates that he lived in penury during his later years: ‘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’. Gahagan’s effects amounted to less than £200.
Little is known of the two children who practised as sculptors. No work has been identified by Lucius Gahagan II (1798-1866), the son mentioned in his father’s obituary. The sculptress daughter, Sarah or Sally Gahagan (1801-1866), who administered her father’s modest estate, was perhaps responsible for a bust of a child exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817, in which case she was an extraordinarily youthful exhibitor.
Sylvia Allen/IR
Literary References: Graves III, 190; Gunnis 1968, 161; SDA
Will: FRC microfiche, 1858-1930, 1855
Miscellaneous Drawings: Dancing Jerry, lithograph, BM 1906-8-20-3; John Parrish Esq, lithograph, BM 1906-8-20-4; seven silhouettes, BM 1906-8-20-2; two drawings of unidentified subjects, pencil, BM 1906-8-20-1; Queen Charlotte, pencil drawing, c1818, inscribed ‘the original drawing taken at Bath whilst taking the Baths’, Museum of London C2397
Auction Catalogue: Chandos House, Bath (?1840)