This work is based on a tale from Boccaccio's Decameron, retold by Keats, in which Isabella, the sister of rich Florentine merchants, falls in love with their poor apprentice Lorenzo, who is later murdered by her brothers. Isabella discovers the body, cuts off his head, and buries it in a pot of basil, which she waters with her tears. The moment shown is a dinner scene filled with emotional tension: Isabella leans towards Lorenzo while her brother kicks a dog beneath the table, hinting at the cruelty to come. Millais painted it in the early Pre-Raphaelite style—highly detailed, brightly coloured, and deliberately archaic in composition and costume, rejecting the academic conventions of the time.