This watercolour represents one of several large-scale decorations that Burne-Jones undertook for St Paul's Within-the-Walls, the American Episcopal Church in Rome. It shows the design fitted into a lobed space above the second chancel arch. Its subject is Christ crucified before a Tree of Life, the latter symbolising the eternal life that he died to give. Unusually, Christ is flanked by Adam and Eve rather than the traditional figures of St John and the Virgin Mary. The sheaves of corn allude to Adam's curse to till the fields. The thorns of the brier rose, juxtaposed with the lilies, symbolic of purity, refer to Eve's sinfulness. The Latin inscription means, 'you shall have affliction in the world, but have faith, for I have overcome the world'. The decoration was executed in mosaic, a medium much used in 5th- and 6th-century Byzantine decorations. Burne-Jones greatly admired their simplified forms.