. . . The frightened people thronging came About the palace, and drove back the guards, Making their way past all the gates and wards; And, putting chamberlains and marshals by, Surged round the very throne tumultuously. Of all the drawings in the series, this has the deepest, velvety richness of pencil work, particularly in the robes of the king and his counselor. There are several individual studies for the petitioners in the Birmingham collection, as well as a sketch design for the composition which more close- ly adheres to Morris's text. In both the drawing and the oil the three kneeling figures on the right have replaced a group of agitated townspeople being held back by a guard. An addi- tional supplicant figure also appears, his gesticulation suggest- ing a narrative of the dragon's reduction of his victims to the rended cloth and bones produced for the king's inspection. 1 Having added the element of bright colour to the painting, Burne-Jones increases the expansiveness of the scene by elim- inating the foreground tree. 1. A pencil study for this figure, retrospectively inscribed "Story of S. George/ The bones brought to King," is in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (49127); reproduced in Martin 1997, fig. 43.
A study for the second painting in the series of seven canvases illustrating 'The Story of St George' for the dining room of the artist Myles Birket Foster, at Witley, Surrey. In both the completed 1865 drawing in the collection of the British Museum and the oil painting the figures of the king and chamberlain on the left are in much the same position, but the other figures, arranged in two separate groups, differ considerably from those in the finished pictures. The 1866 oil painting is now in the collection of Hanover College, Indiana