Kurt Locher identified this bodycolour drawing as being of Medusa in 'The Death of Medusa' from the 'Perseus' series. However, it should be noted that this design of Medusa was abandoned by Burne-Jones in both the finished paintings at Southampton and the Staatsgalerie; in those versions she is seen from behind instead, although the body is essentially in the same pose, with the placement of hands altered. Burne-Jones used the frontal pose of Medusa, based on this sketch, in a preparatory study for 'The Death of Medusa', in a private collection in England (in Locher's catalogue it is reproduced as fig. 71).
The pose of the figure is identical but reversed, to that of Cupid's victim in the series of versions of Cupid's hunting fields c 1880, and these therefore relate directly to the Perseus series and shed light upon Burne-Jones's attitude towards Medusa. In Cupid's Hunting Fields, the dominant interloper - Cupid, selects a victim amongst a party of maidens, who can be equated with Perseus - the destroyer of Medusa.