Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R.W.S.

The pose of the model in the present drawing is not one that appears in the versions of The Wheel of Fortune at the Musée d’Orsay, National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Wales or in the Cecil French Bequest. However it does appear at the top of the wheel in the earliest-known versions of the composition painted c.1870 (Carlisle Museum and Art Gallery), as one of the five agonised figures (rather than three in the later versions). At this early stage in the genesis of the subject Burne-Jones had not identified the individual figures of a king, a poet and a slave and all the male prisoners are equally susceptible to Fortune’s whims.

There are many studies for the muscular Michelangelesque male figures in The Wheel of Fortune, but most relate to the later versions of the painting – there are examples in the British Museum, Art Gallery of New South Wales and in private collections (one sold in these rooms, 12 July 2018, lot 1).