Bust Brawl: The Battle Over a Black Bronze Prince

“Bust Brawl: the Battle over a Black Bronze Prince” examines the tug-of-war between the Right Honorable General Sir Henry Frederick Ponsonby, the Privy Purse and private secretary to Queen Victoria, and John Throp, a sculptor and marble mason based in Leeds, over the creation of the deceased Crown Prince Alemayehu of Ethiopia’s bust soon after his untimely death at age eighteen on November 1879 in Leeds. The article is based on the correspondence between and among Sir Henry Ponsonby; John Throp; Sir Stafford Northcote, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; Francis John Williamson, Queen Victoria’s favorite sculptor; and Professor Cyril Ransome, Prince Alemayehu’s private tutor. It is part of a larger book and documentary/narrative film project written and directed by Yemane I. Demissie.