John Christian endorsed the identification of this slight sketch as having been made during the period in which, encouraged by Rossetti, B-J and Morris were designing and making painted furniture in a heavy medieval style for their studio at Red Lion Square.
The reason for attributing the present drawing to Burne-Jones is circumstantial. Whilst they were living in Red Lion Square, William Morris was designing large pieces of furniture which Rossetti described as "tables and chairs like incubi and succubi". Burne-Jones was concurrently working for Powell's but how the drawing came to be in their possession is unknown, the drawing could be by either Morris or Burne-Jones. Fiona MacCarthy did not acknowledge the source, but states that "a later large-scale chair was surmounted by a box which Rossetti thought would be ideal for keeping owls in" ("William Morris: A Life for our Time" p 120). The present drawing appears to have a chair with such a structure above it. Pat Kirkham in The Journal of the William Morris Society Vol IV No. 3 Summer 1981, identified the maker of the furniture as being Tommy Baker of Christopher Street, Hatton Garden and being executed by Henry Price, who observed that Morris "spent a lot of his leisure in carving the arms and panels".