The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon was conceived of in 1881, and was designed to hang in the library at Naworth Castle, the house of Burne-Jones's friend George Howard, ninth Earl of Carlisle, although in fact Howard never received the picture. The present drawing is related to the musician seated on the right-hand side of the bench upon which the king is lying. The drawing must represent a relatively early design for the figure because neither the fall of the draperies nor the distribution of the limbs exactly corresponds to that which one finds in the finished picture. The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon is now in the Museo de Arte, Ponce, Puerto Rico.