(1772 - 1838), collector, s. of David Digues La Touche.
c.1787/8 - 95 [Dublin] Rome (1787/8 - Jul. 1789), Venice (10 Aug. 1789), Naples (1792 - 93), Verona (10 Jul.), Lucca, Verona (10 - 11 Sep. 1794), Vicenza (11 Sep. 1794), Abano, Padua [Pisa (7 Jan. 1795)] Venice (10 Jan. - 11 Apr.)
In 1787 - 88 Canova received commissions for three figures of Amorini, one from John La Touche in Rome.1 La Touche was a friend of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, to whom he sat in June 1789 and in July they were together in the Villa Borghese.2 They may also have visited Sicily together; a copy by Anna Tonelli after a portrait by Hamilton of John La Touche includes the amphitheatre at Taormina with Mount Etna in the background (Christie's, 10 Jul. 1990).
John was probably the La Touche who arrived in Venice on 10 August 1789,3 and he appears to have been with his father at Naples in the winter of 1792 - 3 (see David La Touche). Between July 1794 and April 1795 La Touche, recorded as 'Gio.la Touch d'Inghilterra', toured in northern Italy: on 10 and 11 September he was in Verona, staying at the Locanda Due Torri; he arrived in Venice on 10 January 1795, staying with Joseph Jeffry and his wife and Frederick Parr at the Locanda Petrillo.4 A 'Mr Latouche', possibly the same, was listed by Captain Cochrane in Pisa on 7 January 1795.5
In Dublin, on 14 August 1792, H.D. Hamilton visited the La Touche residence in Harcourt Street to witness the unpacking of a marble pedestal upon which Canova's Amorino (Sotheby's, 4 Jul. 1996) was to be placed.6 In September 1800 Canova complained to Hamilton that he still had not received his 'cento scudi' for this work.7
1. H. Honour, Connoisseur, 144[1959]:227. 2. Hamilton 1984, 176n19. 3. ASV is 760. 4. ASV is 771, 772. 5. Cochrane jnl.MSS. 6. Hamilton 1984, 169 - 70. 7. Canoviani MSS,
ii/79/1554.
N. F.