Sir Edward Hales, Baronet, of Hales Place, Hackington, Kent

Mercier's portrait of Sir Edward Hales, Baronet, of Hales Place, Hackington, Kent, from 1744, documents a prominent Kent baronet from a family with deep royalist and Catholic associations — the Hales family had suffered for their faith during the Glorious Revolution. By the 1740s, Mercier was well established in English aristocratic and gentry circles after his period as official painter to Frederick, Prince of Wales. The Hales commission exemplifies the range of portrait work that sustained provincial gentry demand for professional likenesses alongside Mercier's more fashionable London and court clientele.

The portrait deploys the conventions of formal English male portraiture — three-quarter pose, dignified dress, and an expression conveying social authority — with the lighter French handling that gives Mercier's work its distinctive quality amid the English market.