Silverpoint and white chalk on grey prepared paper, 28 by 21 cm (11 by 8 ¼ ins)

Provenance: from the artist to his granddaughter Angela Margaret Thirkell (née Angela Margaret Mackail); by descent to Graham Campbell McInnes (Graham Thirkell) then given to his son Simon McInnes in 1969

Exhibited: London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart., 1899, no. 204.; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa NGC (Musée des Beaux-Arts du Canada, Ottawa MBAC) on loan in 1980 (Jones L-2.3)

The present work forms part of a series of silverpoint drawings that are connected with Burne-Jones’s major Italian-inspired painting The Golden Stairs (1876-1880) (Tate Gallery, acc.4005). The painting resulted from a trip to Italy in 1871 and coincides with a period sometimes referred to as the artist’s Florentine phase. The technique in this drawing was inspired by Florentine art of the Quattrocento, including the work of artists like Filippino Lippi. A number of related studies were given to the Ashmolean Museum as part of a bequest from Helen Mary Gaskell in 1939, see for example Study for “The Golden Stairs” (The Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (acc.1939.15)). Like this drawing those works are notable for their grey prepared background which complements the greys and whites produced as a result of the application of the silverpoint medium. This sensuous nude is a study for the prominent bending figure to the centre right of the finished painting. In common with other studies by Burne-Jones, the artist made the preliminary study as a life drawing prior to adding the fabric of the clothing.