Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/22

 Retiring to Ardmore, Gatehouse, near his birthplace, in 1880, Faed painted several landscapes in the neighbourhood, one being presented by him to Gatehouse town hall. He died at Ardmore on 22 Oct. 1902. Faed married in 1849 Jane, daughter of J. Macdonald, minister of Gigha in the Hebrides; she died in 1898. A painted portrait of Faed is in the possession of Mr. Donald Hall, Woodlyn, Gatehouse-on-Fleet.

Faed's practice as a miniaturist led to more elaboration of details in his pictures than contemporary taste approved. His art is typical of the best Scottish genre style of the late Victorian period.

[W. D. McKay's Scottish School of Painting; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, revised ed.; Cat. of Nat. Gal. of Scotland, 42nd ed.; Scotsman, 23 Oct. 1902; Dundee Advertiser, 23 Oct. 1902.]

 FAGAN, LOUIS ALEXANDER (1845–1903), etcher and writer on art, born at Naples on 7 Feb. 1845, was second son in a family of three sons and four daughters of George Fagan by his wife Maria, daughter of Louis Carbone, an officer in the Italian army. Robert Fagan [q. v.], diplomatist and artist, was his grandfather. The elder brother, Joseph George, a major-general in the Indian army, died in 1908; the younger, Charles Edward, is secretary of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. His father, who joined the diplomatic service, was for many years from 1837 attaché to the British legation at Naples, then the capital of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and in his official capacity gave assistance to Sir Anthony Panizzi [q. v.] when on a political mission to Naples in 1851; he was made secretary of legation to the Argentine confederation in 1856, and after settling satisfactorily British claims in Buenos Aires in 1858 became consul-general successively to central America in 1860, to Ecuador (1861-5), and minister, chargé d'affaires, and consul-general to Venezuela (1865-9); he died of yellow fever at Caracas in 1869 (, Life of Panizzi, ii. 101-2).

Fagan's boyhood was spent in Naples, where he early learned Italian and developed an interest in Italian life, literature, and art. In 1860 he was sent in charge of a queen's messenger to a private school at Leytonstone, Essex. In England, he was kindly received by his father's friend, Panizzi (ibid. ii. 213). While still a boy, on returning to Naples, he carried letters from Panizzi to the revolutionary leaders in the Two Sicilies, and he imbibed strong revolutionary sympathies. Accompanying his father to America, he served in the British legation at Caracas (1866-7). In 1868 he was secretary to the commission for the settlement of British claims in Venezuela. He returned from South America in June 1869, and in September stayed in Paris with Panizzi's friend, Prosper Mérimée, who wrote of him as 'conservant malgré toutes les nationalités par où il a passé l'air de l'English boy' (ibid. ii. 274-5).

The same month he obtained on Panizzi's recommendation a post of assistant in the department of prints and drawings in the British Museum, afterwards becoming chief assistant under George William Reid [q. v.] and (Sir) Sidney Colvin successively. He retired through ill-health in 1894. A somewhat hasty temper occasioned friction with his colleagues. Yet during the twenty-five years of official life he helped to increase the usefulness of his department alike for students and the general public.

He published a 'Handbook' to his department (1876) and a series of volumes of service to collectors and connoisseurs, viz. 'Collectors' Marks' (1883); 'One Hundred Examples of Engravings by F. Bartolozzi, with Descriptions and Biographical Notice' (4 pts. 1885); 'A Catalogue Raisonné of the Engraved Works of William Woollett' (1885); 'Descriptive Catalogue of the Engraved Works of W. Faithorne' (1888); and 'History of Engraving in England' (3 pts. fol. 1893). He also gave lantern lectures on the British Museum through the country and published in 1891 'An Easy Walk through the British Museum.'

His Italian training, which made the Italian language as familiar to him as English, focussed his main interests on Italian art and literature. His chief works on these subjects were 'The Works of Correggio at Parma, with Biographical and Descriptive Notes' (folio, 1873); 'Catalogo dei disegni, sculture, quadri e manoscritti di Michelangelo Buonarroti esistenti in Inghilterra' (in vol. ii. of Aurelio Gotti's 'Vita di M. Buonarroti')(1875); 'The Art of Michel' Angelo Buonarroti as illustrated by Various Collections in the British Museum' (1883), and 'Raffaello Sanzio: his Sonnet in the British Museum' (1884). He translated Marco Minghetti's 'The Masters of Raffaello' in 1882.

Fagan was also a practical artist, painting well in water-colours, drawing with refinement, and etching with much delicacy. He exhibited at the Royal Academy a series of etchings in 1872 depicting views