These interesting fragments relate to an elaborately worked drawing in the British Museum showing Orpheus leading Euridice out of Hades, with Pluto and Proserpine behind (see Virginia Surtees, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1971, I, p.141, no.243; II, pl.364). Rossetti mentions working on this drawing in a letter of 20 July 1875, implying that it was a preliminary study for a painting, and our fragments would appear to be part of a full-scale cartoon, lightly sketched in and showing the figure of Euridice, which is draped in the drawing, nude. No painting was ever carried out, but, if this hypothesis is correct, it was planned on a considerable scale.