Richard Ball Spencer is a British marine artist who flourished from 1840 to 1870 and painted in the style of Buttersworth. Spencer mainly conducted private commissions and seven of his paintings are in the Greenwich Maritime Museum in England. A similar pair of portraits attributed to R.B. Spencer and depicting Admiral Perry's victory over the British on Lake Erie, September 10, 1813, are featured in an advertisement by William Blair Ltd. in the Magazine Antiques, September 1975.