George Tinworth (1843-1913) was a wheelwright's son from Walworth who developed a natural talent for sculpture and whose first entry at the Royal Academy in 1866 was a plaster-of Paris group. In the same year, he started working for the Doulton pottery in Lambeth, known for industrial ceramics, and it was largely as a result of Tinworth's decorative talents that the art pottery side of the Doulton business evolved over the following decade.

Two other examples of the bust are known, one in the possession of the City of London Phonograph & Gramophone Society. Colonel Gouraud was Edison's British agent in the 1888-93 period, and the busts were presumably given to favoured clients or sales representatives