It depicts Harmonia, whose husband Cadmus was transformed into a serpent. The picture shows the moment when she stripped her clothes and the serpent wound round her before she was also transformed into a snake. The finished picture is at the Watts Gallery.
It is one of 100 works included in the catalogue Deutsch Englisch/German British: Drawings, Prints, Photographs, Sculptures and Letters, 1850-1920.
With works offered for £650- 85,000 at the north-west London gallery, the collection spans naturalism to symbolism, drawing on literature as well as visual art to illustrate the movements.
The various entries offer glimpses into the lives of artists from Germany and Great Britain and highlights the lives that many of them led in Italy.