The couplet which forms the sub-title is taken from Tennyson's 'Sir Galahad', an early expression of the poet's interest in Arthurian legend, published in the Poems of 1842. Paton's choice of it for a subject underlines his Pre-Raphaelite affiliations since it was one of the poems that Rossetti had illustrated in the Moxon Tennyson of 1857, and it had played a crucial part in the plan formed by Morris and Burne-Jones to establish an 'Order of Sir Galahad' at Oxford. 'Learn Sir Galahad by heart', Burne-Jones told his friend Cormell Price in 1853, 'He is to be the patron of our Order.' In 1858 he illustrated the poem in an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing (Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard).

The handsome frame which contributes so much to the picture's decorative effect was designed by the artist and 'made up by Doig' (Noel-Paton and Campbell, loc.cit.). Henry Doig seems to have been Paton's dealer-cum-colourman, whose duties included taking one of his pictures to Balmoral for inspection by Queen Victoria, reproducing them in photogravure, and supplying him with painting materials (ibid., pp.38-40).