Sculpture and Faith at St Paul’s Cathedral, c. 1796-1914: W. F. Woodington, The Gospel of St Luke (1862): Enlisting the Bible

Extract

My contribution to this roundtable takes William Frederick Woodington’s relief as its starting point for a wider exploration of the use of biblical iconography and modes of storytelling in the sculptures and monuments at St Paul’s Cathedral.

In 1857, William Frederick Woodington was awarded the second prize in the competition for a national memorial to the Duke of Wellington which was to be erected in St Paul’s Cathedral. First prize went to William Calder Marshall. Neither artist was, however, ultimately granted the commission; this finally went to Alfred Stevens, whose work was posthumously completed by John Tweed. Woodington and Calder Marshall were each tasked with executing three reliefs for the chapel that would eventually house Stevens’s Wellington memorial (c. 1857–1912).¹ Woodington’s relief representing St Luke 3. 14 is one of the three reliefs the sculptor produced for St Paul’s (Figure 1).

The relief shows St John the Baptist responding to the soldiers’ question: ‘And what shall we do?’ to which St John replies: ‘[And he said unto them] do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely. And be content with your wages’. These are the words inscribed into the marble at the bottom of the relief. The Baptist, with camel hair loincloth and cross, addresses a group of three soldiers who are all attentively listening to him; with hand on chin, hand on heart, hands folded on knee (Figure 1). St John’s gesture of address is elegant in its contrapposto and gentle in the saint’s extended hand and inclined head. He speaks with an authority that rests in the cross by his side. St John’s stance is mirrored by that of the soldier standing closest to him, who steadies a spear with his right hand.