A page from the facsimile edition of Burne-Jones' Flower Book, one of 38 watercolour designs reproduced by Henri Piazza et Cie, for the Fine Art Society, London in 1905.

'Love in a Mist' is the common name of the fennel flower (Nigella damascena). In the Victorian language of flowers, 'love-in-a-mist' meant 'perplexity' (Pickston, The Language of Flowers, 1913), hence Burne-Jones's image of Cupid entangled in a web of mist. Burne-Jones has used similar imagery in two earlier drawings in the 'Orpheus' series, 'Across the Flames I & II' (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; 1873).

An almost identical composition featuring the god of love again is found in the third predella of the 'Troy' polyptych, 'Love Overcoming Oblivion'.