Harriet Osborne O'Hagan (1830–1921) was an Irish portrait artist.

Life

Harriet Osborne was born in Dublin in 1830. She initially studied with George Sharp RHA. At least one

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

address can be discerned from her exhibited works, 195 Great Brunswick Street. Having moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, she appears under the name O'Hagan in 1854 living at 193 Stanhope Street, though it is unknown when or where she married. Around 1866, O'Hagan moved to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. She was in Paris at the same time as

Sarah Purser Sarah Henrietta Purser RHA (22 March 1848 – 7 August 1943) was an Irish artist mainly noted for her portraiture. She was the first woman to become a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. She also founded and financially supported An T� ...

, and was a member of her social circle, however little is known about her personal life or career. Purser produced portrait entitled Mademoiselle Lemercier in 1887, which is likely to be O'Hagan's daughter, Marguerite Lemercier O'Hagan (1859 – c.1930). It has been suggested that this portrait was created during a visit to Ireland. O'Hagan lived out her life in France, and it is known that she lamented being unable to return to Ireland. She died in 1921, in Paris. Her grandson was Eugène Lemercier, son of her daughter Marguerite, who were both artists in their own right. Lemercier's wartime correspondence is now in the collections of the

National Library of Ireland The National Library of Ireland (NLI; ) is Ireland's national library located in Dublin, in a building designed by Thomas Newenham Deane. The mission of the National Library of Ireland is "To collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the ...

. She was buried in

Montmartre Cemetery The Cemetery of Montmartre () is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise Cemet ...

, 6th Division, along the wall, in the center of the division, with her daughter Eugenie-Anna (1863-1972), and her son Maximilian (1856-1881).

Artistic career

The first appearance of O'Hagan exhibiting, under Osborne, was at age nineteen with a lithograph of Mrs Hone after Mr Burton with the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the Royal Irish Academy, the academy retained the word "Royal" after mo ...

in 1849. In 1851, she submitted four portraits, one in chalk and a watercolour of

Richard D'Alton Williams Richard D'Alton Williams (8 October 1822 – 5 July 1862) was an Irish physician and poet, "Shamrock" of the ''Nation''. Life He was born in Dublin, the son of James and Mary Williams, who came from Westmeath. He grew up in Grenanstown, a townla ...

. Encouraged by Sharp to study abroad, O'Hagan lived in

for a time, exhibiting under the name O'Hagan with the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

in 1854. Having moved to Paris in 1866, she studied with

Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (; 21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught many notable contemporary figures of the art world, such as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chava ...

Léon Cogniet Léon Cogniet (29 August 1794 – 20 November 1880) was a French history and portrait painter. He is probably best remembered as a teacher, with more than one hundred notable students. Biography He was born in Paris. His father was a painter ...

, and Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury. O'Hagan taught classes, with some suggestion that she opened her own academy for women. Between 1866 and 1876, she showed largely portraits at salon exhibitions. One such work was a portrait of her daughter, entitled ''Marguerite s'amuse''. In 1948, M. Garbaye and J. de L'Etre of Savigny-sur-Oise,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

presented the

National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland () houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street, Dublin, Clare Street. It ...

(NGI) with two oil paintings and four charcoal drawings by O'Hagan. Three of the drawings are portraits, with one undated drawing believed to be her sister Eugénie, and the other two her daughter Marguerite. The final charcoal drawing is entitled ''Farm in Normandy'' (1880). The oil paintings are ''Maximilian O'Hagan'' and ''An Interior'' respectively. One painting, ''An Interior'', was featured in the NGI's 1984 exhibition, ''The Irish Impressionists, Irish Artists in France and Belgium, 1850-1914''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OHagan, Harriet Osborne 1830 births 1921 deaths Artists from Dublin (city) 19th-century Irish women artists 19th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish women painters 19th-century Irish women painters