Thomas Ball (June 3, 1819 – December 11, 1911) was an American sculptor and musician. His work has had a marked influence on
monumental art in the United States, especially in
New England.
Life
He was born in
Charlestown, Massachusetts, to Thomas Ball, a house and sign painter, and Elizabeth Wyer Hall. His father died when he was twelve.[1] After several odd jobs to help support his family, he spent three years working at the New England Museum, the precursor to the
Boston Museum.[2] There, he entertained the visitors by drawing
portraits, playing the violin, singing, and repairing mechanical toys. He then became an apprentice for the museum
wood-carver Abel Brown. He taught himself
oil painting by copying
prints and casts in the studio of the museum superintendent.[3]
His earliest work was a bust of
Jenny Lind, whom he saw on her 1850 tour of the United States. Copies of his Lind work and his bust of Daniel Webster sold widely before being widely copied by others.[4][5] His work includes many early cabinet busts of musicians.[3] His first statue of a figure was a two-foot high statue of Daniel Webster, on which he worked from photographs and engravings until he managed to see him pass his studio shortly before his death.[6] At thirty-five, in 1854, he travelled to
Florence to study.[7]
Musician
Ball was an accomplished musician from his teenage years, working as a paid singer in Boston churches.[8] He performed as an unpaid soloist with the
Handel and Haydn Society beginning in 1846 and with that organization, sang the title role in the first United States performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah,[4][9] and the baritone solos in Rossini's Moses in Egypt. On a visit to Boston years later, he performed the baritone role in Boston's first performance of
Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony with the
Germania Orchestra on April 2, 1853.[10][11]
Painter
As commissions started to come in, he moved from studio to studio until he settled in a studio in
Tremont Row in
Boston, where he remained for twelve years. There, he painted several religious pictures and a portrait of
Cornelia Wells (Walter) Richards, editor of the Boston Evening Transcript. He then turned his attention back to sculpture.
Sculptor
He stayed in Boston until 1865 when he returned to Florence to stay there until 1897 as a member of an artistic colony that included
Robert and
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and
Hiram Powers. Notables he met in Europe included
Franz Liszt, whom he met at the
Vatican in 1865 and of whom he produced a portrait bust.[4][7]
He made it a practice never to attend the unveiling of his public works. In Boston, he managed to avoid receiving the invitation to the ceremonial dedication of his statue of Governor
John Albion Andrew. Instead, he saw the work later, viewing it from different angles. He later wrote: "It was a mean thing to do. I am ashamed of it now, but I could not bring myself to stand on that platform and face the multitude."[12]
In 1880, Ball published an autobiographical volume, My Threescore Years, which he updated in 1890 as My Three Score Years and Ten.[14] He died at the Montclair home of his daughter, Eliza Chickering Ball, and son-in-law, sculptor
William Couper.[9][15]
Daniel Webster (bronze, 1885–86),
New Hampshire State House, Concord, New Hampshire.[22] The commission was first given to sculptor
Martin Milmore, then to his brother. Ball took it over following the deaths of both Milmores.[23] This poses differently from his earlier Webster statues.
George Washington Monument (1883–1893),
Methuen, Massachusetts.[26][27] This was Ball's most complex and ambitious work, consisting of a 15-foot bronze statue of Washington, four larger-than-life seated figures, four portrait busts, and four eagles flanked by flags, all displayed on a multi-tiered marble base. The monument was created at Ball's studio in Florence, Italy. His son-in-law,
William Couper, assisted in modeling the figures. It was exhibited at the
World's Columbian Exposition before being installed in Methuen, Massachusetts, and dedicated on February 22, 1900.
George Washington
Cincinnatus (seated figure of Washington)
Revolution (seated figure)
Oppression (seated figure)
Victory (seated figure)
Bust of the Marquis de LaFayette
Bust of General Henry Knox
Bust of General Nathaniel Greene
Bust of General Benjamin Lincoln
Four sets of Eagles and Flags
The monument was sold in 1958, disassembled, and moved to
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, California.[28]
Gallery
Benjamin Franklin, Printer (1856),
Old City Hall, Boston, Massachusetts.
^United States Senate:
"Henry Clay". Retrieved August 25, 2012
^Harding, Jonathan (1984). The Boston Athenaeum Collection: Pre-Twentieth Century American and European Painting and Sculpture. Northeastern University Press. p. 16.
^Official Proceedings at the Dedication of the Statue of Daniel Webster at Concord, New Hampshire on the 17th Day of June 1886, (Manchester, NH: John B. Clarke, 1886), p. 9.
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