This sketch relates to one of three mural paintings executed by Burne-Jones in the drawing-room at Red House in the summer of 1860, soon after William and Jane Morris moved in. The incomplete series of paintings illustrates the wedding procession, ceremony and feast of the Arthurian knight Sir Degrevaunt, in which the Morrises are depicted as Degrevaunt and his bride.
The composition is the same as The Wise and Foolish Virgins.