The painting was untraced at the time of the Southall Exhibition in 1980, but is referred to in the catalogue in connection with a later version of 1925-6 and a study for our version, both in public collections in Birmingham and both exhibited. The story of Ariadne, abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus after she had helped him to slay the Minotaur, had a great appeal for Southall. Two further versions of the composition were painted in the 1920s, one of which hung for many years over the dining-room fireplace at his house in Edgbaston, and he also treated the subject in other compositions and as decoration for a painted cabinet (see the 1980 catalogue, nos. B10 and H8).