The dawing is a study for the figure of Elias in a design of the Transfiguration which Leighton made early in 1863 for the apse of St Paul's Cathedral. Presumably on the strength of the mural of The Wise and Foolish Virgins which he was currently painting at Lyndhurst Church in the New Forest, he was one of four artists who were invited to submit designs; the others were G.F. Walts, who declined to compete, Alfred Stevens, who never responded and, and the little-known Edward de Triqueti, the son of a fashionable sculptor. He was not successful, the commission (which was never carried out) going to Triqueti. F.G. Stephens, describing Leighton's designs in the Athenaeum, wrote: 'The artist has given an air of extreme repose and immobility to his conposition, fit for the situation proposed for it: that aspect is attained by the sobriety and simplicity of the actions, general breadth and massing of the draperies ... Before the feet of the Saviour ... are figures of worshippers in an ecstasy of adoration ... Moses is placed in the left hand of this division ... On the othr side is Elias; who, kneeling, bends his head and sinks his hands as in adoration.' See Athenaeum, no. 1843, 21 February 1863, pp. 264-5, and L. and R. Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, p. 57