The Golden Stairs is ‘beyond all question the painter’s masterpiece’1 but was a picture that caused Burne-Jones great hardship. Shortly before the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1880 when Burne-Jones first showed the picture to the world, his wife wrote; ‘The picture is finished, and so is the painter almost.’2 The painting had been first designed in 1872 - inspired by Burne-Jones’ visit to Italy – but it took over a decade of painstaking work to perfect through careful study of every detail. A symphony of whites, it is ethereal and beautiful – virtually subject-less though apparently inspired by a line from Dante; ‘Non vi si monta per iscala de oro’ (no one may ascend the golden stair). The painting was bought by the Liberal politician and aesthete Cyril Flower (later Lord Battersea) for Surrey House, his palatial London residence at the corner of Oxford Street and Edgware Road – it is now one of the Pre-Raphaelite treasures of the collection at Tate Britain. Although the figure drawings were all drawn from professional models, Burne-Jones took trouble in finding different sitters for the heads of each of the musicians. These were chosen from his well-connected circle of fashionable young women; the daughters of patrons, friends and fellow artists. The three drawings in this lot were made in preparation for the figure stooping half-way down the stairs and for two figures at the bottom of the stairs. The first of these figures was modelled by Leighton’s favourite model Ada Alice Pullan, a celebrated actress who performed under the stage-name Dorothy Dene. The central drawing in the frame, relates to the figure entering the doorway, modelled on Mary Stuart Wortley (later Lady Lovelace) whose cousin, Lord Wharncliffe bought another of Burne-Jones’ masterpieces King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (Tate). The third drawing is for the girl holding cymbals on the last step of the staircase, modelled on Frances Graham the daughter of Burne-Jones’ patron William Graham. These three pages of studies (and others) were photographed by Frederick Hollyer and appear in the album of 72 photographs exhibited by Peter Nahum in 1989, Burne-Jones the Pre-Raphaelites and their Century, no. 86. 1. Athenaeum, 3 April 1880, p. 448. 2. G.B.J., Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, 1904, p. 103.