Burne Jones made visits to the British Museum c1866-7 to view etchings and drawings from Italian Renaissance masters. With its contraposto pose and the cap the figure wears in the drawing derives from figures in the lunettes in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, which can be seen in a sketch book held by the Victoria and Albert Museum (E.5-1955). The drawing dates from c. 1866 and was later coloured, probably in the 1880s. A study with variant drapery for the seated King, posed by a young model and altered into an older figure in the painting