Robert Ball Hughes

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Ball Hughes' statue of Nathaniel Bowditch
Ball Hughes' statue of Nathaniel Bowditch
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Robert Ball Hughes (January 19, 1804/1806 - March 5, 1868), often known as Ball Hughes, was a British-American sculptor, born in England and active in the United States.

Ball Hughes was born in London, England, where he studied under Edward Hodges Baily, and emigrated to New York City in 1829. His first major commission was a high-relief marble memorial to Bishop John H. Hobart for Trinity Church, New York, followed by a statue of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, and subsequently a statue of Alexander Hamilton (placed atop of the Merchants' Exchange Building, New York, but destroyed by fire in 1835). After a short stay in New York, and then Philadelphia, he settled in Boston, where he produced busts of Washington Irving (1836) and Edward Livingston, and a large bronze of mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch for Mount Auburn Cemetery (1847).

Ball Hughes also designed numerous wax medallions, as well as coins for the United States mint, including modifications of Christian Gobrecht's design for the Seated Liberty quarter (1838), and the half dime (1859). In his final years, he began to produce burnt wood pictures (pyroengravings or "poker pictures"), including Babylonian Lions (1856), The Witches of MacBeth (c. 1862), Don Quixote in His Study (1863), The Trumpeter (1864), General Grant Proclaiming the Surrender of Richmond (1865), The Last Lucifer Match (1865), and The Monk (1866). Hughes is buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery, Dorchester, Massachusetts.

The National Portrait Gallery contains Ball Hughes' busts of Nathaniel Bowditch, Washington Irving, James Kent, John Marshall, and his medallion of John Trumbull.

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