One of a small group of landscapes made by Burne-Jones in 1863, three of which are in the Birmingham Collection. These images are probably as close to true Pre-Raphaelitism as he ever got in its 'truth to nature', being drawn from woods at Cobham, Surrey, while visiting Stanhope. Although it is a scene taken from a real location, there is a romantic and mysterious atmosphere in the way the picture is composed, again owing a strong debt to Giorgione and Venetian painting which was an extremely strong influence on him at the time. It has been suggested by some scholars that these landscapes served as background studies for Burne-Jones's 1863 work, The Merciful Knight, also in Birmingham's Collection. His granddaughter, Angela Thirkell, who presented these landscapes to Birmingham stated that these were in fact used for the 1864 watercolour Green Summer (Private Collection).
This and no. 247 [Burne-Jones 1975] were almost certainly made at the same time as the study background for The Merciful Knight (no. 84 [Burne-Jones 1975]), during Burne-Jones's visit to Spencer Stanhope at Cobham in June 1863.