This could be a study for Satan warning the Rebel Angels, an illustration to Milton's Paradise Lost, for which there are a number of drawings in pencil and also a study for the whole composition in pencil and wash, with the central figure in much the same place as in this drawing, sold in these Rooms 19 November 1985, lot 100, illustrated, and again 7 July 1995, lot 110, illustrated as drawn circa 1794 under the encouragement of William Hayley who was planning a Life of Milton to be illustrated by Romney; there is another composition study in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (see P. Jaffé, Drawings by George Romney, 1977, no.114, illustrated pl.53).