Nothing as early as this picture is in Sims' file in the Witt Library. Painted when the artist was twenty-three, it is quite unlike his later work stylistically, although the subject is not untypical. No doubt it reflects his traning in the early 1890s, which included periods at South Kensington, the Académie Julian in Paris and the Royal Academy Schools.

The subject must be Titania's awakening from the enchantment laid on her by Oberon during which she falls in love with the weaver Bottom disguised as an ass (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene 1). The queen of the fairies is not usually given such an angel-like form, but the harp she plays evidently refers to the music which she calls for to confirm the sleep of the five mortals - Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, Lysander and Bottom - who have shared her enchantment:

Oberon: Titania, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
Titania: Music, ho! music! such as charmeth sleep.
Puck: When thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.
Oberon: Sound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Sims was evidently attracted to fairy subjects at this date, exhibiting A Fairy Wooing at the Royal Academy in 1898.