James Latham
, Irish, 1696-1747
Title
Double Portrait of Bishop Robert Clayton (1695-1758) and his Wife Katherine (née Donnellan) (d.1766)Datec.1740
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
128 x 175 cm
Credit LinePurchased, 1982
Object numberNGI.4370
DescriptionBoth Robert, who had been a brilliant don of Trinity College, Dublin and had travelled extensively in Continental Europe, and Katherine, daughter of a former Lord Chief Justice of the Exchequer, were regarded as persons of culture and taste. A former Mistress of the Robes to Queen Caroline, Katherine provided her careerist husband with access to the court’s most central circles. The Claytons lived in surroundings as tasteful as they were salubrious. Their house on St Stephen’s Green, built to the design of Richard Cassel (or Castle) was later encased into the larger Iveagh House, and gifted to the Irish nation by the second Earl of Iveagh in 1939. Latham spent a short period in Antwerp before returning to Ireland in 1725, where he enjoyed a successful career as a portrait painter. Here, he communicates the confidence and loftiness of the Claytons, particularly the figure of the Bishop, with characteristic ease. He casts Katherine in a secondary role, dressed in subdued brown and occupying much less of the composition. Her elegant but simple dress is typical of the period, and she wears few jewels.
March 2016
ProvenanceCommissioned by the sitters and by descent; Browne Clayton family; presented to The Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland; indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland, 1969; purchased, The Representative Church Body, 1982 Exhibition HistoryIrish Portraits 1660-1680, National Portrait Gallery, London; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1969-1970
Church Disestablishment 1870-1970, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1970
Acquisitions 1982-83, National Gallery of Ireland, 1983
Label TextBoth Robert Clayton, a brilliant don of Trinity College, Dublin who had travelled extensively around continental Europe, and his wife Katherine, were regarded as persons of culture and learning. A former Mistress of the Robes to Queen Caroline, Katherine provided her ambitious husband with access to the court’s most central circles, and the couple lived in surroundings as tasteful as they were salubrious. Here, Latham communicates the confidence and loftiness of the Claytons, particularly the figure of the Bishop, with characteristic ease. He casts Katherine in a secondary role, dressed in subdued brown and occupying much less of the composition.