This is a study for the celebrated watercolour version of 'Green Summer' (1864), now held in a Private Collection. It shows Burne-Jones responding to his second Italian visit in 1862 by producing a number of what has been described as 'a distinct line in Giorgionesque idylls', and shows Burne-Jones moving away from Rossettian Pre-Raphaelitism towards Aestheticism. The subject here is of a group of girls seated by a river, listening to poetry.