Burne-Jones began work on the painting, which takes for its subject the Elizabethan ballad which Tennyson used as the basis for his poem The Beggar Maid, in 1880. The painting was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884, number 69; King Cophetua was enthusiastically received and in 1900 was acquired by the Tate Gallery.
The majority of work was done on the painting in 1884, therefore these studies were made earlier between 1880 and 1884. Already the composition had been made and typical of the artist techniques, he investigated variants of details ( in this case the King's cloak) in search of a perfect expression of his ideas.