Whilst the figures in this drawing don't match exactly, they appear to be studies for the male nudes wrestling in the foreground of Venus Discordia. Concieved as part of the Troy Triptych (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) in 1870, Venus Discordia was designed as a predella panel to complement Venus Concordia either side of The Feast of Peleus, and below The Story of Troy. The triptych was never finished, and nor was a large oil study of Venus Discordia now in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. However, Burne-Jones executed rare highly finished presentation drawings for both Venus subjects (both Whitworth Gallery, Manchester), and in that drawing we can see the echo of these figures, moved and manipulated to fit the composition. In keeping with the theme of the Trojan War, Venus Discordia shows the divisive effects of love, with Venus presiding over a scene of carnage inspired by the four vices, Anger, Envy, Suspicion and Strife.
These drawings are part of a set of studies Burne-Jones made for sections of the Troy Triptych. Defeated or dead, foreshortened male bodies appear in Venus Discordia, "Love" in "Fortune, Fame, Oblivion, Love and Helen at the Burning of Troy. This work is the only time that Burne-Jones portrayed dead or dying figures and they reflect his mood in the early 1870s as a result of the on-going Zambaco affair.