A plaque near the work relates how Charles Dodgson, then merely a mathematician, came to visit Munro while Greville was sitting. Dodgson suggested that Greville would be much better off with a marble head, the clinching argument being that the hair would not require combing. Later, Dodgson sent Munro a cartoon of his friend's horrified reaction to the idea.
Dodgson became a friend of the Macdonald family, getting them to read his manuscript of the Alice stories to the children to find out if they would really appeal to young people. Macdonald was so impressed he persuaded Dodgson to lengthen the story.
Irrelevant factoid: Greville Macdonald had a brother called Ronald.