James Latham (c. 1696 – 26 January 1747) was an Irish portrait painter. Self-Portrait -James Latham

Biography

James Latham was born in

Thurles Thurles (; ''Durlas Éile'') is a town in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located in the civil parish of the same name in the barony of Eliogarty and in the ecclesiastical parish of Thurles (Roman Catholic parish), Thurles. The cathedral ch ...

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...

, in the

Kingdom of Ireland The Kingdom of Ireland ( ga, label=Classical Irish, an Ríoghacht Éireann; ga, label=Modern Irish, an Ríocht Éireann, ) was a monarchy on the island of Ireland that was a client state of England and then of Great Britain. It existed from ...

. Possibly related to the family of Lathams of Meldrum and Ballysheehan. After some practice of his art, Latham studied for an academic year in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

(1724–25) where he became a Master of the

Guild of St Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was identi ...

. He returned to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

by 1725, and may have visited England in the 1740s, as the influence of Joseph Highmore, as well as

Charles Jervas Charles Jervas (also Jarvis and Jervis; c. 1675 – 2 November 1739) was an Irish portrait painter, translator, and art collector of the early 18th century. Early life Born in Shinrone, County Offaly, Ireland around 1675, the son of John Je ...

and

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like s ...

, is evident in his work of this period.

Anthony Pasquin John Williams (1761–1818) was an English poet, satirist, journalist and miscellaneous writer, best known by the pseudonym of Anthony Pasquin. Life He was born in London on 28 April 1761, and was sent in 1771 to Merchant Taylors' School. There ...

memorably dubbed Latham "Ireland's Van Dyck". Latham died in Dublin on 26 January 1747. Several of James Latham's portraits are in the National Gallery of Ireland collection in Dublin; one is of the famous MP Charles Tottenham (1694–1758) of New Ross, Co. Wexford, "Tottenham in his Boots" (Cat. No.411) and a second is a portrait of Bishop Robert Clayton (1697–1758) and his wife Katherine (Cat. No. 4370). In 1947 the London Tate Gallery purchased Latham's portrait of Sir Capel Molyneux (ref. N05801), two centuries after the artist's death in Dublin.

References

* Anthony Pasquin, ''Memoirs of the Royal Academicians'' and ''An Authentic History of the Professors of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture who have Practised in Ireland'', 1796 * W. G. Strickland, ''Dictionary of Irish Artists'', 1913 * A. Crookshank & the

Knight of Glin The Knight of Glin (; dormant 14 September 2011), also known as the Black Knight or Knight of the Valley, was a hereditary title held by the FitzGerald and FitzMaurice families of County Limerick, Ireland, since the early 14th century. The fam ...

, ''The Painters of Ireland'' c. 1660–1920, pp. 38–44, 1978 * Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, ''The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675–1709'', 1988

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Latham, James 1696 births 1747 deaths Artists from County Tipperary 18th-century Irish painters Irish male painters Painters from Antwerp People from Thurles