The portraits dating from the late 1860s belong to the period when Murray was most closely involved with Burne-Jones's studio, which he entered as an assistant in November 1866. The self-portrait at the age of eighteen and other studies in sepia wash relate to a comment made by W.S. Spanton in his book An Art Student and his Teachers in the Sixties (1927, p.69), that 'Murray was good at studies and portraits in sepia, and he did one of Burne-Jones at his easel'. This drawing, dated 1869, is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see Morris & Company in Cambridge, exh. Fitzwlliam Museum, 1980, cat no.22 and pl. 4), and there is a comparable portrait of William Morris, of about the same date, in the National Portrait Gallery.

E.R. Hughes (1851-1914) was the nephew of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes. He acted as a studio assistant to Holman Hunt and made his name as a painter of literary subjects and portraits.