An interesting first stage in the evolution for the painting The Hours (1883). It reveals its origin as an illustration possibly to William Morris's The Earthly Paradise, in which a musical element predominates. To the left a musician accompanies a dancing girl who occupies the right of the drawing. Across the centre the seated maidens who later became The Hours, two of whom add to the music by playing zitherns, the others appear to be listening and two also spin with distaffs. There are distant visual references to Lorenzetti's fresco of Good and Bad government in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena.