Thomas Ball was a leading sculptor of realist bronzes in Boston during the second half of the nineteenth century. The death of his father, a sign painter, caused him to quit school at the age of twelve to help support the family. One of his jobs was in a museum, where he began to cut silhouettes and paint miniature portraits. In 1840 he exhibited two miniature portraits at the annual exhibition of the Boston Athenaeum. He went on to paint life-size portraits and even exhibited history paintings at the American Art-Union in 1848 and 1849. He also supported himself as a singer, winning leading roles.

Some experiments with modeling clay in 1850 launched Ball’s career as a sculptor. He modeled small-scale portrait busts until 1852, achieving a considerable local reputation. He was in Florence from 1854 to 1857, then in Boston, and after 1865 more or less permanently in Florence. From 1858 to 1861 he worked on his most famous sculpture, the heroic equestrian statue of Washington for the Boston Public Garden. Throughout his career, Ball was in demand both as a carver of portrait busts and a modeler of heroic public portrait sculptures. He also executed several ideal sculptures. In 1897 he retired and moved to Montclair, New Jersey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Thomas Ball, My Threescore Years and Ten: An Autobiography (1891; reprint of 2d ed. in The Art Experience in Late Nineteenth-Century America Series, ed. H. Barbara Weinberg, New York: Garland, 1977) § William Ordway Partridge, "Thomas Ball," New England Magazine n.s. 12 (May 1895): 291-304 § Taft 1930, pp. 141-49, with bibliography § Wayne Craven, "The Early Sculptures of Thomas Ball," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 5 (Fall 1964-Winter 1965): 2-12 § Craven 1968, pp. 219-28, 258-61, with bibliography.