Drawings from this early period in Leighton's career. the 1850s, are intensely observational. They are done with a sharp pencil with every attention to detail, one of the most famous examples being the  Byzantine Well Head of 1852, of which the Ormonds wrote 'his drawing... is an extraordinary testament to that passionate, inquiring vision typical of Leighton's generation. It combines the calligraphic elegance of a medieval manuscript border with extreme definition. A comparison with the well-head itself, one of very few such survivals in Venice, proves how exactly Leighton drew what was before him.' (Richard and Leonee Ormond, Frederic Leighton, 1996, p. 15). Later in the Ormond's book, they go on to say: 'Leighton’s fascination with the masters of the Venetian school reveals itself in a number of ways, one of which is the direct copying of specific Old Masters ... Drawings after Giorgione from the same period of 1852-3 also exist. These are records of poses as much as anything, and Leighton uses these studies more than once when designing the figure groups of his larger pictures. He also refers to Giorgione and Titian in a painting such as Rustic Music (Leighton House, London) in which the compositional motif of a half-length figure leaning on a ledge or sill is taken directly from the conventions of Venetian portraiture.'  (ibid, p 62)

Bellini's Holy Allegory, the painting in the Uffizi in Florence that Leighton copied this detail from was re-attributed to Bellini by Cavalcaselle from Giorgione. The poses, (at least the legs) are similar to central figures in Leighton's Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna (1853-5), in the National Gallery, London.