James Latham (c. 1696 – 26 January 1747) was an Irish portrait painter.
James Latham was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, in the Kingdom of Ireland. Possibly associated to the relatives 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. He returned to Dublin by 1725, and may have visited England in the 1740s, as the influence of Joseph Highmore, as well as Charles Jervas and William Hogarth, is evident in his take action of this period. Anthony Pasquin memorably dubbed Latham “Ireland’s Van Dyck”. Latham died in Dublin upon 26 January 1747.
Several of James Latham’s portraits are in the National Gallery of Ireland accretion in Dublin; one is of the well-known 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.
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