Lot Essay
Described by Crookshank and The Knight of Glin (op.cit.) as 'one of Latham's most memorable paintings almost French in feeling with its vivid colour and animation', this portrait holds a key place in the artist's oeuvre of only about thirty-five known works.
Latham trained in Antwerp and was a master of the Guild of St. Luke between 1724 and 1725. Stylistically, it seems fair to assume that he must have travelled to or from Antwerp via Paris, and was back in Dublin by the late 1720s where he established himself as Ireland's most distinguished portrait painter of the first half of the 18th Century.
Thomas Bligh, or Blighe, was the second son of Thomas Bligh of Rathmore, Co. Meath. He was Member of the Irish Parliament for Athboy, Co. Meath, for sixty years from 1715. He married first Elizabeth (d.1759), sister of W. Bury of Shannon Grove, Limerick, and second Frances, daughter of Theophilus Jones of Leitrim. His only child, from his first marriage, died young. Often entitled 'honourable' by contemporary writers after the enoblement of his brother as the Earl of Darnley in 1725, Bligh pursued an active military career for most of his life. Present at the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General and was one of the more prominent military figures of the Seven Years War. In 1758 he was appointed to command the force sent to assist Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany. After capturing and slighting Cherbourg, the expedition was repelled by the French under the Duc d'Aguillon, at St. Cas. Bligh was censured for the affair and retired to affairs in Ireland.
Latham trained in Antwerp and was a master of the Guild of St. Luke between 1724 and 1725. Stylistically, it seems fair to assume that he must have travelled to or from Antwerp via Paris, and was back in Dublin by the late 1720s where he established himself as Ireland's most distinguished portrait painter of the first half of the 18th Century.
Thomas Bligh, or Blighe, was the second son of Thomas Bligh of Rathmore, Co. Meath. He was Member of the Irish Parliament for Athboy, Co. Meath, for sixty years from 1715. He married first Elizabeth (d.1759), sister of W. Bury of Shannon Grove, Limerick, and second Frances, daughter of Theophilus Jones of Leitrim. His only child, from his first marriage, died young. Often entitled 'honourable' by contemporary writers after the enoblement of his brother as the Earl of Darnley in 1725, Bligh pursued an active military career for most of his life. Present at the battles of Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-General and was one of the more prominent military figures of the Seven Years War. In 1758 he was appointed to command the force sent to assist Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany. After capturing and slighting Cherbourg, the expedition was repelled by the French under the Duc d'Aguillon, at St. Cas. Bligh was censured for the affair and retired to affairs in Ireland.