Burne-Jones's sketchbooks at this period are full of copies after the antique, some taken from books such as Ennio Quirino Visconti's Museo Pio-Clementino (1782-1807) and Pierre Bouillons Musee des Antiques (1821-27), others from the sculp- ture in the British Museum, which was conveniently close to the rooms that he and his family occupied at 62 Great Russell Street from 1861 to the end of 1864. 3 There are many reflections of this study in his current work, but the chief example is The Lament, with its friezelike composition, its pale, chalky colours, creating a sense of low relief, and its figures expressing a mood of restrained sadness, like those on a Greek stela or gravestone. In fact, as so often with Burne-Jones, the line from source to finished picture can be traced with revealing clarity. One of his sketchbook copies is taken from the seated figure of Ares (Mars) on the Parthenon frieze. The god of war is shown seated fac- ing left, with his hands clasped on his knees, and he clearly inspired an early study for the young woman on the right in the painting, in which she assumes an upright pose. In further studies and the painting itself she bends forward in an attitude more expressive of grief, although she retains the clasped hands of the Greek original.
One of a group of drawings in Birmingham's collection for the right figure in the watercolour 'The Lament' (1865-66), now in the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. Here the figure appears more weighty than in the finalised version.