Louis Fagan

author

Louis Fagan

1845–1903

An art-minded writer with one foot in Italy and the other in Victorian London, he turned a museum career into a shelf of lively books on prints, artists, and the world around them. His work is especially appealing for readers curious about the British Museum, collecting, and nineteenth-century art.

2 Audiobooks

The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 2 (of 2) Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.

The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 2 (of 2) Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.

by Louis Fagan

The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 1 (of 2) Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.

The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., Vol. 1 (of 2) Late principal librarian of the British museum, senator of Italy, etc.

by Louis Fagan

About the author

Born in Naples in 1845 and later active in Britain, Louis Alexander Fagan was an Anglo-Italian writer and artist. Reliable reference sources describe him as a specialist in prints and drawings who spent much of his working life at the British Museum, where he served in the Department of Prints and Drawings from 1869 to 1894.

Fagan wrote extensively about art, engraving, and the people connected with the museum world. His books include studies of the British Museum’s print collections and a life of Sir Anthony Panizzi, the influential librarian who helped shape the institution. That mix of scholarship and firsthand experience gave his writing an informed, practical tone.

He was also an etcher and man of letters, with family ties to art and diplomacy, and he died in Florence in 1903. Today he is remembered less as a novelist than as a knowledgeable guide to the art, print culture, and museum history of the nineteenth century.