In 1875, Burne-Jones was commissioned by the Rt. Hon. Arthur Balfour to paint a series of mural panels in the music room of his London house, 4, Carlton Gardens; the theme chosen by the artist was the story of Perseus. Ten full scale bodycolour cartoons (now in Southampton Art Gallery) were executed (see the photograph on the wall), from which eight subjects were to be carried out in oil. However, only four oils were completed and two further oils remained unfinished at the artist's death. This study is probably for the nereid (that is sea-nymph) standing nearest to Perseus in the The Arming of Perseus. Although Burne-Jones has himself identified this study as relating to a particular painting, in fact in his later years he made vast numbers of head studies, often very similar, and often, it appears, independent of paintings.
One of Burne-Jones' many friends was Cecilia Steele Maxse, the estranged wife of Admiral Frederick Augustus Maxse and the mother of Violet (later Viscountess Milner) and Olive, who, in their own rights, became close friends of Burne-Jones'. Violet, born in 1872, was the youngest Maxse child. She had a great interest in art, and studied in Paris from March 1893-January 1894. In June 1894, she married Lord Edward Cecil, a soldier and foreign service officer with whom she traveled widely. Their marriage was not a particularly happy one, and after Cecil's death in 1918, Violet married Sir Alfred Milner, who died in 1925. After her brother Leo's death in 1929, she took over editorship of the National Review, owned by their family since 1893. She had 2 children with Lord Cecil, George and Helen. She died in 1958.