The Captive Boatmen; bas-relief

Percival Ball studied at the Royal Academy and exhibited from 1865 to 1882. In 1866 he was awarded a medal for his marble relief, The Brazen Serpent. Of his many portrait works, the busts of the author Blandford Edwards and his wife, Amelia Ann Edwards are in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Ball travelled in Europe between 1866 and 1876, before moving to Melbourne in 1886. There, he became affiliated with the Australian Art Association, and his work is well represented in Australian Museums, including his relief Phryne before Praxiteles in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and further reliefs for the exterior of the same musuem.