James Latham (c.1696- 26 January 1747)
Portrait painter, born in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, Ireland possibly related to the family of Lathams of Meldrum and Ballysheehan. Latham studied for an academic year in Antwerp (1724-5) where he became a Master of the Guild of St Luke. He returned to Dublin by 1725, and probably visited England in the 1740s, as the influence of Joseph Highmore as well as Charles Jervas and William Hogarth is evident in his work of this period. Anthony Pasquin memorably dubbed Latham "Ireland's Van Dyck" James Latham died in Dublin 26 January 1747.
Anthony Pasquin, in his 'Memoirs of the Royal Academicians and an Authentic History of the Artists in Ireland', 1796 W.G. Strickland, Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1913 A. Crookshank & the Knight of Glin, The Painters of Ireland c. 1660–1920, 1978, pp.38–44 Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988