Nos. 218 -220 [i975 Burne-Jones exhibition] belong to a group of sketches for objects to be made by the architect and designer, W A S Benson. Burne-Jones met Benson about 1877. Strikingly good-looking he sat for the head of Pygmalion in the Pygmalion series (no. 137) and for his portrait (1881). When Burne-Jones bought a house in Rottingdean as a country retreat in 1880, Benson carried out the alterations and designed the furniture. Benson also made a pieces of armour needed for such paintings as the Perseus series and the first Briar Rose picture. Lady Burne-Jones wrote in her biography (II, p. 145): 'Sir Coutts Lindsay had a fine collection of old armour from which Edward made drawings, and in addition to this, with the help of Mr Benson he designed many pieces himself, expressly to lift them out of association with any historical time. It was Mr Benson who designed and made the King's crown in the large "Cophetua".' A number of these pieces, including the Cophetua crown, are reproduced in Vallance, op. cit. pp. 28-30