Frederick Sandys was born in Norwich,[2] and received his earliest lessons in art from his father, Anthony Sands, who was himself a painter.

He had a long affair with the Romany woman Keomi Gray, who sat as a model both for him and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (The Beloved), and perhaps also for Simeon Solomon.

[7] In 1862 Sandys met actress Mary Emma Jones, known as Miss Clive, when she modeled for The Magdalen, now owned by the Norwich Castle Museum.

She appears in paintings such as Sandys's Love's Shadow and his 1867 work Proud Maisie, which was inspired by Mary--so much so that he made at least 11 versions by 1904.

Sandys displayed great skills as a draughtsman, achieving recognition with his print The Nightmare (1857), parodying John Everett Millais's Sir Isumbras at the Ford.

[3][9] The caricature, produced using the new autographic lithographic process, caused a lot of talk about who the artist might be and ultimately introduced Sandys to the London art community.

[10] Sandys began drawing in the 1860s for Once a Week, the Cornhill Magazine, Good Words and other periodicals, his work influenced by Albrecht Dürer, Ambrosius Holbein, and Alfred Rethel.

Sandys made a total of 26 between 1859 and 1866, but each was a fine representation of this genre, faithfully engraved by professional wood-engravers, including the Dalziel brothers and Joseph Swain, and they are worthy of the collector's portfolio.

It was engraved by Swain for Once A Week but suppressed by the publication's editor, despite Sandys having the support of the magazine's publishers, on the grounds that it was too sensuous.

He was drawn to stories of women who "seduce, entrap and destroy men, such as Helen of Troy, Morgan Le Fay and Medea."