The Origin of Painting was created by George Woodall just a few years before his death in 1925.
It is an exceptional example of cameo glass artwork in which two (or more) colors of glass are layered by a glass blower into a glass blank that is then carved so that upper layers of glass are removed to show lower layers. Origin of Painting is classic cameo glass with white glass layered on top of blue. The shadows in Origin of Painting (see first link below) was created by thinning the white glass until it became translucent, allowing some blue glass below to show through.
