Inscribed (verso): King Acrisius having dreamed that/ he should be slain by the hand [of] his daughter/ Danae built a ... tower to shut Danae there in/ as long as she lived, thinking so to/ undo the ... of the Gods

On headed paper for 2 Mandeville Place W

Pencil with pen and black ink on paper, 17.5 by 11 cm (6 ¾ by 4 ¼ ins)

Provenance: from the artist to his granddaughter Angela Margaret Thirkell (née Angela Margaret Mackail); by descent to Graham Campbell McInnes (Graham Thirkell) then given to his son Simon McInnes in 1969

The artist’s daughter, Margaret Mackail, recollects in an inscription attached to this drawing that her father would often amuse himself by sketching a “Rubens version” of one of his major pictures when he had finished them. The present work is based on Burne-Jones’s paintings of Danae and the Brazen Tower (one version of which is in the collection of Glasgow Museums, acc.936 (see fig.1)).