This drawing is a study for a finished oil that was exhibited in the Lloyd Webber Collection, Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters, Royal Academy, London, 2003, no. 50. The portrait of Amy Gaskell is one of the artist's most haunting, reflecting the enigma of a youth that is no longer a girl, but not yet a woman. Amy was the daughter of one of his dearest friends, May Gaskell whose relationship with Burne-Jones has been recently explored in Josceline Dimbleby's A Profound Secret, London, 2004
Burne-Jones's portrait of Amy Gaskell is dated 1893 and was exhibited at the New Gallery, London, the following year. It was highly praised by the French critic Robert de la Sizeranne in his book on contemporary English painting (1895), and is indeed a superb example of Symbolist portraiture, evoking comparison with examples by Whistler, Fernand Khnopff and others. Amy Gaskell's mother, Helen Mary (May) Gaskell (1853-1940), enjoyed an intense but seemingly platonic relationship with Burne-Jones in the 1890s. Their amitié amoureuse was the subject of Josceline Dimbleby's book A Profound Secret, published in 2004.