This drawing was incorrectly inscribed by Burne-Jones as a study for the slave, instead of the crowned figure of the king depicted below the slave on the wheel (finished painting exhibited Grosvenor Gallery 1883, now in the Louvre, other versions elsewhere). It is not uncommon that in the haste to prepare for an imminent exhibition details such as this were confused. An equivalent study was sold Sotheby's Belgravia, 24.iii.1981/151, but without any inscription. The drawing owes much to Michelangelo, particularly his Boboli slave (now in the Accademia, Florence). Another comparable drawing is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (acc.no.3733/4) and there is a study of just the head in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool (acc. LL3787: see J. Feather, cat. of watercolours in the collection, 2010, p. 25). For the final painting see the EBJ exhibition, Birmingham and elsewhere 1998-9, no. 52. Framer's and exhibition labels mounted with drawingInformation label, Temporary Display in Room 90 April-Sept 2010: "Burne-Jones's 1871 Italian sketchbook includes several careful studies of the Sistine Chapel and of Michelangelo's figures of captives in the Accademia in Florence. He also studied his Dying Slave in the Louvre, of which Burne-Jones owned a plaster cast. The finished painting of The Wheel of Fortune (now in the Louvre) was amongst his own favourites; but when he was preparing this drawing for exhibition later in life, he mistakenly inscribed it as the figure of the slave, bound above the King on the wheel."