The volume contains 7 preparatory drawings in graphite on tracing paper for Pygmalion and the Image (4), Atalanta's Race (3), and 2 prints for The Ring Given to Venus (2), on 10 leaves, bound in half-leather with marble paper sides. Two of the designs for Pygmalion in the album are closely related to those in the famous series of 4 oils painted from 1868 to 1870 now in the Birmingham City Art Gallery.
From 1864 to 1867, William Morris and Burne-Jones co-operated on a project to produce a profusely illustrated and finely designed edition of Morris's poem The Earthly Paradise. Each of the twenty-four poems was to have had up to fifty illustrations, but although a majority had been planned, only The Star of Cupid and Psyche was provided with a complete set in a finished state. Various lists survive, in the British Museum, Birmingham City Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which indicate the scope of the illustrations, and they would imply that many more have yet to come to light. The present volume is of particular interest as it contains designs for three of the stars, Pygmalion and the Image, The Ring Given to Venus and Atlanta's Race. The designs for Pygmalion were to become the germ of the famous series of four oils now in Birmingham City Art Gallery (1868-79). Another album in the Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York, contains a similar but more simplified drawing of Pygmalion sculpting Galatea and a pull of a copperplate engraving from it. This and the two engravings for The Ring given to Venus in this sketchbook are the only three such known by Burne-Jones. Other impressions can be seen at The William Morris Gallery and Birmingham City Art Gallery. The idea of illustrating The Earthly Paradise with engravings was obviously soon rejected. The remaining three drawings are for Atlanta's Race and were hitherto unknown.