[1][2] Rossetti made a version of Water Willow in coloured chalks at Kelmscott, and then painted the small oil "to fit a beautiful old frame I have"[3] In the chalk study, Jane holds a pansy, symbol of love and remembrance, rather than the willow branches, a symbol of sorrow and longing, of the final painting.

[1] In 1877, facing financial difficulties, Rossetti sold the painting to "a new buyer", William Alfred Turner (1839–1886), a Manchester cotton spinner, who also purchased Proserpine at that time.

[1][4] Rossetti apologized to Jane Morris for selling the work, saying he was "really mortally sorry to part with the Kelmscott picture" but "felt there was no alternative".

Water Willow was the first Pre-Raphaelite painting acquired by the American collector Samuel Bancroft, who purchased it in 1890.

Murray asked and received Bancroft's permission to make a copy that he gave to Jane Morris, because "she was to have had the picture, it being a great favourite of hers.