This is a study for the left-most musician waiting in vain for a signal from Venus to resume playing in his painting Laus Veneris (1873-78). The model was Frances Graham (later Lady Horner) in about 1875. Frances was the daughter of Burne-Jones's patron William Graham, and in the early 1870s the latest of a series of infatuations that possessed the artist throughout his life. Frances wrote that their friendship coloured my whole life', and a friend recounted that 'if she had been born ten years later she would have run off with Burne-Jones'. Her profile was Burne-Jones's favourite aspect.
This study displays a variant gaze from the final figure in Laus Veneris, in which she gases directly into the face of Venus. The Fitzwilliam work list notes that Burne-Jones was working at the painting in 1874 for 2 months so this drawing would date from before or around this time.