The study of the hand and arm holding a palm is possibly a variant for the Angel holding a palm and viol in the St Cecilia window of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford of c. 1874. This would apparently indicate that Burne-Jones was working on the Perseus Series before he received a commission for the murals from Arthur Balfour. This was typical of Burne-Jones's working method, in which he encouraged patrons to take up subjects which already existed either in his mind or in the form of preliminary designs.