According to Burne-Jones’ account books, these drawings were made in 1872, seven years before Burne-Jones designed the circular roundels for the exterior of a famous piano made for his most loyal patron William Graham. Burne-Jones chose a suitably musical subject for the imagery, depicting the story of the musician Orpheus, who ventured to the Underworld to plead with Pluto and Proserpine for life to be restored to his wife Eurydice, who had been killed by a snake-bite. There are a set of ten pencil designs for the piano panels at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Of the earlier gouache designs, there are examples at Tate and in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and two more are known, Orpheus Losing Eurydice and Orpheus Encountering Sisyphus (Christie’s, London, 7 June 2001, lot 24 and 25). Burne-Jones's friendship with William De Morgan is well known and one copper lustre dish with Orpheus playing his harp at its centre is acknowledged to having been designed by Burne-Jones. This is dated c.1880, but we consider it to be c.1875. Many of De Morgan's early figurative designs were inspired by Burne-Jones and it is here suggested that this early series roundels of Orpheus made 1872 were to be used as designs for ceramic plaques by De Morgan. As yet no plaques have appeared and the project may have proved too difficult and the abandoned designs were later adapted for the Graham piano.
A version c 1872 showing Orpheus in the background, which clearly has a narrative content and is likely to have been derived from a possible illustration to the Orpheus story in Morris's Earthly Paradise. In the naked figure of Sisyphus it shares the angst of other works of the period eg The Souls by the Styx. In the second version ( Tate Gallery, Orpheus was eliminated and the design simplified presumably to be made easier for De Morgan to translate it into a ceramic design).
Sisuphus with inscription "Sisyphus/ by E. Burne-Jones" (on the artist's label attached to the backboard) and with a further inscription No. 327. / by E. Burne-Jones ARA/ Edmund oldfield Esq/ 19 Thurloe Square/S.W./ C.hall to/ deliver at this address/ on Aug 9th. no. 323." (on old label attached to the backboard). From the same series of drawings as lot 24. (Orpheus and Eurydice) Sisyphus was one of a number of mythological figures (Tantalus and Ixion were others) who were punished in Hades for offences committed on earth, and were seen by Orpheus when he visited the underworld in search of Eurydice. A king of Corinth notorious for his cunning and double-dealing, Sisyphus was condemned to push a huge stone up a hill only to see it slip from his grasp and roll down again as soon as he reached the summit. the numbers 323 and 327 which occur on the old labels on the backs of lots 24 and 25 may be inventory number. the drawings,were not in either of the artist's memorial exhibitions, at the New Gallery in 1898-9 and the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1899, Christie's 2001