William Menelaus (1818-1882)
Sir Thomas Brock, K.C.B., R.A. 1847-1922
Marble
1884, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885.
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff [Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd]
Scottish-born engineer Menelaus rose to become Managing Partner of Dowlais Steelworks, and first President of the South Wales Institute of Engineers. A cultured man, he was a great reader, especially of Scottish poetry, and an art-lover whose bequest of thirty-six paintings, as noted on the museum label, formed the foundation of the museum's art collection. Brock based this posthumous bust on Menelaus's death-mask, and photographs of him.
Photograph (by kind permission of the museum) and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]