Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
Provenance
Sir George and Lady Elizabeth Lewis (a gift from the artist in 1881);
Thence by descent
This drawing is for a figure near the bottom of the stairs in the finished painting, of 1880. Burne-Jones would develop a theme for years, even decades. He seems to have conceived the concept of a group of beautiful musicians descending a helical stair from 1872. After beginning the actual painting in 1876, he had to rush to finish it in time to be his only exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery four years later. Mary Gladstone, the daughter of the Prime Minister, sat for the head, at least for figure in the painting (Mary is behind her best friend Frances Graham, holding the cymbals and leading the procession), and possibly for this drawing. FG Stephens described the descending girls "troop[ing] past like spirits in an enchanted dream. … What is the place they have left, why they pass before us thus, whither they go, who they are, there is nothing to tell."
This drawing was originally bound in a sketchbook given by the artist to Sir George and Lady Lewis, which was split up for sale in 2016.