BURIED TOGETHER
Partner Evelyn De
Morgan, Anna Maria Wilhelmina
Stirling
Queer Places:
Brookwood Cemetery, Glades House, Cemetery Pales, Brookwood, Woking GU24 0BL, UK
Jane Hales (1851-1926)
emerged as a favoured muse amongst Pre-Raphaelite artists. She had
distinguishable traits, slighter facial features than other models of the
time, such as Jane Morris (nee Burden, married William Morris). She also had
loose lustrous waves of long hair, seen frequently in Evelyn De Morgan’s
paintings. Both Jane Morris and Jane Hales had similar working-class
backgrounds. Jane Morris’s father was a stableman, and Jane Hales father was
an agricultural labourer. Both Janes were also lifelong friends with the De
Morgans, with Jane Hales buried in the same cemetery, Brookwood, just a few
feet away from William and Evelyn De Morgan, showing how highly regarded she
was.
Evelyn De
Morgan's model for Aurora in Aurora Triumphans, 1877-78, was
Jane Hales, who was appointed
nursemaid in 1866, to care for Evelyn's sister Wilhelmina. De
Morgan's repeated images of Hales - often depicted nude - have encouraged some
scholars to speculate on the nature of their relationship. De Morgan's married
ceramist William De Morgan, but Hales was a much-loved member of the household
and was buried next to Evelyn and William.
Born Mary Jane Hales in Leverington, Cambridgeshire, 1851. In 1866 she was
hired as a nanny and housekeeper by the family of Percival Andre Pickering,
QC. She lived with the Pickering family in Upper Grosvenor Street and later
Bryanston Square, London. Evelyn De Morgan was eleven years old and her sister, Wilhelmina Stirling (born Anna Maria Wilhelmina Diana Pickering) was only one in 1866, when Jane Hales,
only 15 at the time, became their live-in nursery maid.
She left the family briefly from May 1870 to
November 1871, possibly due to an illness in her own family. She looked after
and became the companion to the Pickering's daughter, Evelyn (later De Morgan,
wife of the potter and novelist William De Morgan), often posing for her
during her art school studies in London and later in her career. Later, she
became the companion to Evelyn's sister
Anna Maria Wilhelmina Stirling,
continuing to live with her after Wilhelmina's marriage in 1901. She died
1926.
Aurora Triumphans (1886) Evelyn de Morgan
Boreas and Oreithyia (1896) Evelyn de Morgan
The Dryad (1884) Evelyn de Morgan
Luna (1885) Evelyn de Morgan
Lux in Tenebris (1895) Evelyn de Morgan
Helen of Troy (1898) Evelyn de Morgan
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