The study of a naked man with a sword and shield (a similar but slighter sketch being on the back) is for the figure of the Prince entering the briar wood, the first scene in the early or small Briar Rose series (Museo de Arte, Ponce, Puerto Rico). The paintings were conceived by 1869, begun for Wiliam Graham in 1871, and completed in 1873. Another nude study for this figure, slightly different in pose, appeared at Sotheby's Belgravia on 11 November 1975, lot 41 (repr. in cat.).

The study of a standing nude female figure with hands raised above her head is for the figure of Medusa in The Finding of Medusa, one of the Perseus series (see lot 337). A similar nude study was included in the exhibition Burne-Jones: Watercolours and Drawings, held at the Tate Gallery in 1993, no. 58. Both drawings can be dated to about 1877, two years after the series was commissioned