George Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play Saint Joan premiered at the Garrick Theatre, New York City three years after the canonisation of Joan of Arc . The costumes and sets were designed by Ricketts, as were the illustrations for the script, published by Constable and Co. in 1924. Ricketts was already a prominent theatre designer, having worked with Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, John Masefield and Shaw already, but his designs for Saint Joan are widely regarded as his greatest achievement.
The present drawing is the design for the cover of the published script, and its crisp stylised lines act as a shorthand for Ricketts' elegant designs for the production.