Dated by the artist in the 1880s, for an exhibition of drawings at the Fine Art Society, Burne-Jones misdated this work. In actual fact it dates from the late 1860s. During the 1860s, Burne-Jones began to move away from the medieval simplicity of his drapery studies to the complexity and harmony of the neo-classical style that anticipated the Aesthetic movement. His close friend George Frederick Watts had confronted him on his lack of formal training, which on the one hand gave Burne-Jones a sense of inferiority and on the other it drove him to concentrate upon these apparent defects and produce a series of masterful drawings of great intensity. This redirection is evident in Woman in a Classical Robe, an analytical and dissective approach to the drapery, combined with a nostalgia for classical Greece and Rome. This sensuous and textural drawing also demonstrates a new interest in the medium for its own sake. The drawing relates to the series of studies for the decoration of the Green Dining Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.