page_title: John Hale (British Army officer)
section_title: Family
hierarchical_section_title: John Hale (British Army officer) / Family
caption_attribution_description: Caption from the museum Full length portrait of Mary Chaloner, sister in law of Edward Lascelles, later 1st Earl of Harewood. Mrs Hale is depicted as Euphrosyne, in white semi-classical dress with sandals, a posy of rose and honeysuckle at her chest. She is represented in dancing movement , while behind her children are dancing and playing musical instruments. Oil painting on canvas in gilt frame. Additional Information Reynold’s light-hearted image shows Mrs Hale as Euphrosyne, one of the Three Graces, the personification of Grace and Beauty and handmaiden to Venus. Depicting his female sitters in mythological guises was a common practice for Reynolds, and he often used poses and roles that alluded to great art of the past, in order to elevate the status of the sitter to that of a divine being. This painting was completed a year after the marriage in 1763 of Mary Chaloner to Colonel John Hale of the Light Horse. Mrs Hale proceeded to bear 21 children in her marriage, and it was once thought that the children in this picture were some of them, but this is not the case. The children represent the spirit of joy of music, playing timpani, triangle and cymbals as Mrs Hale dances. Her dancing pose is said to be taken from a print after Raphael’s St Margaret in the Louvre. Whilst this is plausible , given Reynold’s admiration for Raphael and his borrowing from earlier art, the evidence for this is not conclusive.
context_page_description: General John Hale was a British army officer, who is remembered chiefly for his close friendship with General James Wolfe, and for his exceptionally large number of children by his wife Mary Chaloner, a noted beauty who was painted by Joshua Reynolds.
context_section_description: He was born in London in 1728, the youngest son of the eminent judge Bernard Hale, former Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer and his wife Anne Thoresby; his father died a few months after he was born.  General Bernard Hale was his elder brother.  The Hale family came originally from King's Walden in Hertfordshire, and were prominent in local politics for generations.
  John married in 1763 Mary Chaloner, daughter of William Chaloner III of Guisborough and his wife Mary Finny; she died in 1803.  They had twenty-one children, ten sons and eleven daughters.  Of their children William, John, Richard, George, Francis, Henry, Bernard, Vicesimus, Edward, Emily, Elizabeth, Mary, Anne, Fanny, Catherine, Charlotte, Octavia, Jane and Harriet survived infancy and seventeen of the twenty-one outlived their father. Hale bought a farm near Guisborough which he renamed Plantation House, and where the family grew up,
  His daughter Harriet married Lawrence Dundas, 1st Earl of Zetland. Her sister Anne married Henry Walker Yeoman, and Mary married Thomas Lewin.  Of his sons, John junior had a distinguished political career in Canada. Richard became Vicar of Harewood, a living which was in the gift of his uncle Lord Harewood, and Vicesimus was a judge in India. Francis and Edward were clothiers. None of the General's sons held high military office. 
  Hale was not a rich man, and there is good reason to believe that he had some difficulty in providing for so large a family. Although his wife was the sister of a Countess, her own will shows that some of the younger sons were badly provided for.
  There is a celebrated portrait of Mary Chaloner Hale as Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who also painted her husband. It now hangs in Harewood House, the home of her sister Anne, who married Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood.
caption: John's wife, Mary Chaloner, as Euphrosyne, painted by Joshua Reynolds
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