Boy and Dolphin Fountain

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23/34 Pictures of Hyde Park and surrounding area

The Boy and Dolphin Fountain is located within the Rose Garden on the South East section of Hyde Park.

The plaque nearby reads:
FOUNTAIN 1860
By Alexandra Munro (1825-71)
The model for the boy was Greville McDonald,
the eldest son of Munro's friend George
McDonald, the novelist and fairy-tale writer.

Lewis Carroll - Later to become famous as
author of the Alice books - was a friend of both
Munro and McDonald. One of his visits to
Munro's studio was while this sculpture was
being created. Carroll recorded that he "began
at once proving to the boy, Greville, that he had
better take the opportunity of having his head
changed for a marble one." Greville turned to
his sister with an air of great relief saying "Do
you hear that, Mary? It needn't be combed!" "I
have no doubt combing, with his great head of
long hair, ... was the misery of his life. His final
argument was that a marble head couldn't
speak, and as I couldn't convince either that he
would be all the better for that, I gave in!"

Carroll drew for Greville the pen-and-ink sketch
reproduced below depicting him proposing to a
horrified Munro that he change his head as
Carroll suggested.
Alexandra Munro Sketch

Plaque erected 2005 on behalf of the George McDonald
and Lewis Carroll societies to commemorate the
centenary of the death of George McDonald

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