HUGHES, Ball
, American sculptor: b.
London, 19 Jan. 1806; d. Boston, Mass., 5
March 1868. He early exhibited a decided taste
for modeling and at 12 years of age made out
of wax candle ends a bas-relief copy of a
picture representing the wisdom of Solomon,
which was afterward cast in silver. He was
then placed in the studio of Edward Hodges
Bailey, where he remained seven years. At
this time he successfully competed for the prize
awarded by the Royal Academy, winning the
large silver medal for the best copy in
bas-relief of the Apollo Belvedere; also the silver
medal from the Society of Arts and Sciences
for a copy of the Barberini faun, the large
silver medal for the best original model from
life and a gold medal for an original composition,
“Pandora brought by Mercury to
Epimetheus.” He emigrated in 1829 to New York,
where his first work of importance was a
marble statue of Hamilton, for the Merchants'
Exchange, which was destroyed by fire in 1835.
He also made a life-size statue of Bishop
Hobart for the vestry of Trinity Church. Soon
afterward he moved to Dorchester, Mass.
Among later works of his are the bronze statue
of Bowditch at Mount Auburn Cemetery, a
bust of Washington Irving and a statuette of
General Warren at Bunker Hill. A plaster
figure, ‘Little Nell,’ and a group, ‘Uncle Toby
and Widow Wadman,’ are in the Boston
Athenæum.