Study in gold and red on red-brown ground. Watercolour. Apollo, seated with his lyre, is surrounded by the nine muses in standing groups; background of water, hills and trees.
This study is related to a similar scene called 'The Muses on Mount Helicon', also dating from 1871 (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum), and reproduced in 'The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones', Volume II, p.24 (first edition only). In this book, Georgiana Burne-Jones describes how this beautifully vague scene referring to the home of the Muses on Mount Helicon was suggested to Burne-Jones in a dream. The case is probably the same with 'Parnassus', another mountain, where the Muses met with the God Apollo, to inspire the arts in humankind.