John Northwood I is regarded as the first major carver of English cameo glass. However, only seven cameo works are known to have been carved by Northwood between 1876 and 1882, the year he carved The Pegasus Vase, his last known cameo work. Thus George Woodall, skillful and prolific, was quickly recognized as the greatest cameo carver of his time. In an article published in "The American Poetry Gazette" in 1907-1908, the author states,

…no single individual that we can call to mind has equaled George Woodall in the extent, variety, originality and exclusiveness of his artistic productions; and we venture to assert that the examples bearing his signature would far outnumber those of any other single pair of hands…in specimens that may be classed as representative pieces.

His cameo work has won fame not only in England but in the Colonies and many foreign countries; Americans in particular being very keen on securing samples of his workmanship.

Beginning in 1878, and continuing to produce works until the early 1920’s, Woodall produced a large body of work whose numbers have yet to be determined. In addition, Woodall produced many designs, which were carved by others. Additional research will continue to shed light on the nature and extent of Woodall’s work.

Biographical information on George Woodall is not abundant; the full history of Woodall also remains to be uncovered. George Woodall was born August 15, 1850 in Kingswinford, England. His father, Tom, was a carpenter and his mother, Emma, was the artistic side of the family. Emma’s brother, Thomas Bott (1820-1870), was an enameler at Richardson’s and later became quite well known at the Royal Porcelain Works, Worcester.

Bott encouraged the artistic education of both George and his elder brother Thomas. Both Woodalls attended the Wordsley Church of England schools until the age of twelve. At twelve, each in turn started an apprenticeship at J. & J. Northwood. Again guided by their uncle Bott, both Woodalls entered the Government School of Art in Stourbridge. George was enrolled as a “glass engraver” in November 1866. Working daily at Northwood’s from 7:00 a.m. until 6:oo p.m., Woodall spent three evenings each week at the Government School. In 1868, George passed the Government examination in freehand drawing. Both brothers completed several years of attendance at the Government School of Art.

As an apprentice at Northwood’s, Woodall had the opportunity to study techniques in glass engraving from John Northwood and may have had opportunities to watch Northwood as he worked on The Elgin Vase between 1864 and 1874. Thomas Woodall left Northwood’s around 1874 to go work at Thomas Webb & Sons. If, as has been suggested, George Woodall did not leave Northwood’s until 1877, then there is also the possibility that George was able to view Northwood’s progress on the replica of The Portland Vase.

When George Woodall arrived at Thomas Webb & Sons, some time before 1878, he had an extensive education in the carving of glass. Coupled with his vast talent at design, it did not take long for Woodall’s work to begin to stand out.

Little has been written about the early years, 1878-1888, of Webb’s and particularly George Woodall’s cameo work. Webb cameo appears to have made its debut in 1882 at the Worcestershire Exhibition. In 1884, Webb exhibited cameo glass at the international Health Exhibition in London. It should be noted that during this time Thomas and George Woodall were jointly carving and signing major cameo pieces. The Favourite (c. 1882) is an early work that shows the joint signature. If the dating of the piece is correct, we can see that the carving skills of the Woodalls were already superb. In 1888, Webb exhibited at the Melbourne Exhibition in Australia. There Woodall cameo glass was awarded a Gold medal.

By 1887-8, Thomas Webb & Sons had begun to keep a separate Price Book on cameo glass production and sales. The Price Book is useful in determining the extent of Woodall cameo production and some of the titles of the major pieces. The period between 1880 to 1889 saw a great deal of “commercial cameo” being produced. Demand was high during this period, and this is the period when as many as 100 engravers may have been producing cameo work in the Stourbridge region. The Webb Price Book reflects over two hundred items in 1889 alone (excluding ivory glass items). Most of these show Woodall design numbers, but no major works appear by title.

Perhaps much of the production was in preparation for the 1889 Paris International Exhibition. The Woodall brothers were in attendance at the Exhibition with many examples of Webb’s cameo work. There can be little doubt that the most stunning object in the exhibition was The Great Tazza (1889, Corning Museum of Glass). Clearly a team effort, this large vessel measures sixteen inches in height and is composed of five layers of colored glass, transparent red over opaque white on translucent yellow-green on white on dark green.

A few years later, Webb’s exhibited Woodall cameo glass at the 1893 Chicago Columbian World’s Fair. The cameo glass was received well in the United States and for several years after that many of Woodall’s best pieces came to America.

By this time, George Woodall had made an extensive body of significant works. In this collection we see several works that show the mastery of Woodall’s skill, such as Love’s Awakening (c. 1890). Although he still occasionally cosigned works with his brother Thomas, as in the 1895 panel On the Terrace, toward the latter part of the 1890s and into the 1900s George Woodall began to hold exhibitions of his own work. In 1899, Woodall’s cameo works were exhibited at the Phillips gallery on Mount Street in London for six weeks. It should be noted that the advertisement for the exhibition offers “Sculptured Glass by George Woodall.” An advertisement run by Webb’s during that time boldly announced “Glass Sculpture Designed & Executed by George Woodall.” Clearly the intent here is for the reader of these advertisements to begin to view Woodall’s work as art and not merely as craft.

Close inspection of the Phillips advertisement reveals the cameo work to be The Dancing Girl (c. 1890-92), which can be seen in this collection. The subject in this case is not entirely original, but in fact modified from a sculpture by Antonio Canova (1757-1822). It is known that Woodall had a copy of The Works of Antonio Canova (London 1876). In that text, we see the engraving, Dancing Girl, that Woodall probably used as the source for his design.

During the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century it was standard practice for the finest artists to look toward the ancient and recent masters of sculpture and painting for inspiration. Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Discourses on Art, delivered to the Royal Academy of Art between 1769 and 1790, set the standard for several generations of artists. “On who should we rely?” Reynolds asks in the second Discourse; he replies,”…the answer is obvious: those great masters who have traveled the same road with success…. The works of those who have stood the test of ages.” In the sixth Discourse Reynolds talks about imitation, “I am persuaded that by imitation only, variety, and even originality of invention, is produced.” He again addresses the topic of imitation in the tenth Discourse, “Imitation is the means, and not the end, of art; it is employed by the sculptor as the language by which his ideas are presented to the mind of the spectator.”

Thus we begin to see that within the context of the history of English art, Woodall was in step with the practices of recognized artists. This is just one of many examples where we find Woodall looking to recognized sculptors and painters both ancient and recent, for the subject matter of his cameo work.

By examining the Webb’s advertisement more closely we see another aspect of Woodall’s aspiration into the realm of art. The top image in the Webb’s advertisement is a detail from The Moorish Bathers (1898). Woodall regarded this plaque as the finest work he ever did. This work, of which The Toilet of Venus (Runyon Collections) is comparable in quality of carving, serves to point out a major difference in the work of George Woodall from the work of his master, John Northwood, and Woodall's contemporaries.

A quality that Woodall very early began to develop in his work, and of which he achieved the quintessential expression in these two 1898 works, was pictorial space. In both of these works, Woodall, by sheer mastery of his technical skills, was able to achieve an astonishing pictorial depth in carvings that are barely one quarter of an inch deep. In effect Woodall’s skills were comparable to those of the finest painters. Even when Northwood was carving his own designs, he kept the pictorial space in the image very shallow. Lechevrel likewise, while at Richardson’s, had kept the pictorial space in his cameo works shallow and classical. In these two masterworks by Woodall we can see that he employed the engraving wheel to carve the subtleties in the thickness of the white layer to create the desired pictorial illusion. The Toilet of Venus shows not only the detailed hand-carved female figures, but also the thinly carved buildings appearing in the distance.

Woodall retired from Thomas Webb & Sons in 1911, but continued to sculpt cameo pieces from his studio at Kingswinford. He produced many fine pieces during this period. In light of Woodall’s efforts to have cameo glass elevated to the realm of art, it seems appropriate that the last piece he is known to have worked on was The Origin of Painting plaque. An earlier version, eleven inches in diameter and finished around 1910, had been destroyed when Webb’s display burned during the Brussels Exhibition of 1910.

The subject for this work is taken after Eduard Daege’s Invention of Painting. With its classical setting and historical subject matter Woodall had in effect, created in cameo glass a history painting, the highest level of painting as defined by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A detail of this plaque reveals that even late in life, Woodall maintained exquisite control of glass carving to achieve the desired pictorial effects.

Woodall’s obituary, published in "The Pottery Gazette and Glass Trade Review" lamented the loss of one of the finest “craftsmen” the glass industry has ever possessed. To us, however, Woodall lives on as a master sculptor of cameo glass through the splendid cameo plaques, vases, and panels that are his legacy.

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