Primarily known as her husband's biographer, Georgiana Burne-Jones was an artist in her own right. Taking lessons from Ford Madox Brown she painted tiles for Morris & Co. and made wood cuts, for which this highly-detailed drawing may have been intended. This work follows other contemporary illustrations of the same subject, notably George Frederic Watts' Found Drowned (1848-50, Watts Gallery), Augustus Leopold Egg's Past and Present, No. 3 (1858, Tate), Simeon Solomon's I am Starving (1857, National Gallery of Art, Washington), and Abraham Solomon's Drowned! Drowned! (1860, location unknown).
The scene illustrates Thomas Hood's poem 'The Bridge of Sighs'. Set under Waterloo Bridge in London, a group of gentlemen and urchins surround a waterman who has recovered the body of a homeless woman from the river. The detailed urban setting reflects the influence of Ford Madox Brown, with whom Georgiana Macdonald studied. Her initials 'GM' are in the lower left corner. A label records her gift of the drawing to her granddaughter Clare Mackail. NPG label 2019
