This is an unfinished version of one of the well-known Perseus series, commissioned by Arthur Balfour to decorate the music room of his London house, 4 Carlton Gardens, in 1875. The series as a whole was never completed, but the magnificent glass cartoons exist in Southampton Art Gallery, and the 'final oils', some finished, some not, are in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. The present painting, which shows Perseus about to slay Medusa while her Gorgon sisters crouch in terror, is particularly interesting in the context of this exhibition [The Last Romantics 1989] since it belonged to Rickets and Shannon. A photograph shows it hanging on the walls of Chilham Castle, Kent, which they were given as a country retreat by Sir Edmund Davis in 1918 (see Joseph Darracott, The World of Charles Rickett p. 79). The two artists were great admirers of Burne-Jones, and many more of his works are with the rest of their collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.