An oil painting of this composition was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1893 but is now missing (reproduced in ‘Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A Record and a Review’ George Bell 1989 facing p.68). The oil painting shows minor variations in pose – the figure of Pilgrim for instance looks towards Love at right in oil painting and not at the seated female figure as in sketch and similarly the female figure looks out towards spectator and not at the Pilgrim as in this version. Love in the oil painting also carries arrows as well as a bow. The background is also more elaborate in the oil painting, with lilies and irises in foreground, details of architecture at left and right and a wood with briars at left and three birds flying near figure of Pilgrim./
The subject is another drawn from Chaucer’s ‘Romaunt of the Rose’, which had been used for an extensive series of embroideries (c. 1872-1878) designed by Morris and Burne-Jones and worked by Margaret, wife of Sir Lowthian Bell, and her daughter for the frieze of the dining room at Rounton Grange, Northallerton, Yorkshire, though in the embroideries, the treatment of this specific scene is different. Different treatments of the same scene are also to be found in the Kelmscott Chaucer illustrations and in a tapestry of which one is now in a private collection, the other in the Museum of Karlsruhe.
