In the mid 1860s Burne-Jones worked intensively on a series of illustrations to his friend William Morris' collections of poems entitled the Earthly Paradise. Very few of these were in fact made into engravings, but the figurative arrangements that he invented for the projected illustrated volume recur in different forms throughout the rest of his career. The present drawing of a head and floral crown almost certainly represents an elaboration of a detail within one of the designs. However, the study is treated in the more volumetric stye of draughtsmanship which Burne-Jones generally used as a means of preparing for work in colour, as opposed to the predominantly linear drawings that he made for transfer into engravings. It seems that the present drawing provided the basis for the head of cupid in the oil painting Cupid Delivering Psyche (Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield see Harrison and Waters, 1973 colour plate 27 opposite p 114) which was itself indirectly inspired by Burne-Jones' mythological explorations in connection with The Earthly Paradise. Sotheby's London 1993