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. The cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdi ...

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. The county is named afte ...

, in the Kingdom of Ireland. 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 (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 iden ...

. He returned to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

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 Jer ...

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-lik ...

, is evident in his work of this period. Anthony Pasquin 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 ...

, ''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