he Doom Fulfilled (Southampton City Art Gallery) is one of a series of pictures, originally intended as part of an ambitious decorative scheme for the dining room of 4 Carlton Gardens, the home of the Conservative politician (later Prime-Minister) Arthur Balfour. It depicts Perseus, the hero of William Morris' 'The Doom of King Acrisius' from The Earthly Paradise, having released Princess Andromeda, attacking the sea-monster to which she had been offered as a sacrifice in punishment for her mother's vanity. The naked figure has been described as '..the callipygian figure of Andromeda, one of Burne-Jones's most limpid depictions of the female nude.' (Stephen Wildman and John Christian, Edward Burne-Jones - Victorian Artist-Dreamer, 1998, p.231) There are similar studies in sketchbooks at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and Birmingham City Art Gallery. It is likely that the present sheet was taken from one of these sketchbooks to be given as a gift to a friend or collector, perhaps by the artist himself or by his daughter Margaret or granddaughter Angela Thirkell who bequeathed the sketchbooks to the museums.