... From this point forward he [Burne-Jones] proceeded to overlay his medieval motives with those acquired from his study of Renaissance masters, for instance, The Wheel of Fortune (Cat. 147), a favourite medieval concept which occurs in innumerable manuscripts. The upper figure draws upon Michelangelo’s The Dying Slave (1513-16 fig. 75).
This little plaster version of Michelangelo's famous statue in the Louvre comes from Burne-Jones's house, The Grange, Fulham. The figure is very comparable to to those of the king and slave on the wheel of his pictureThe Wheel of Fortunr (no. 124 [Burne-Jones 1975]) Small casts of Michelangelo's Dawn and Evening in the Medici Chapel in S Lorenzo were also place above the fireplace in the drawing-room at The Grange (see no. 376 [Burne-Jones 1975]).