This is one of a series of drawings in this medium that Burne-Jones produced in the 1890s when he was aware that his work was waning in popularity. He experimented with the technique and paper (see the label text below), and found that there was a market for these drawings which resembled 15th century Italian Renaissance drawings. They are not preparatory for paintings but stand-alone works of art; some take motifs from his other already existing work, such as the Kelmscott Chaucer, others were used as designs for silver plaques, etc. (see Wildman and Christian, EB-J, exh.Birmingham, NY and Paris, 1998-9 and comments on other examples in the Lady Lever Gallery in J. Feather, British Watercolours and Drawings in the Leverhulme coll., 2010, p. 39). British Museum label April-September 2010: "By 1892, metalpoint drawing had become so popular with artists that Windsor & Newton were producing silverpoint kits with paper already prepared. But Burne-Jones's love of drawing encompassed a thorough knowledge of Renaissance techniques, including quattrocento Florentine drawings in metalpoint. He experimented with it in the 1870s, preparing his own white paper. In the 1890s he began again, dipping the paper as many as twenty-five times in bold colours and then painting it with gold or silver to produce a series of angelic figures and heads."