The Mill (Burne-Jones painting)

The Mill is an Aesthetic Movement, Renaissance-inspired oil on canvas painting completed by Edward Burne-Jones in 1882. The painting's main feature is three women dancing in front of a mill pond on a summer evening, with a vague wooded landscape spanning the background. The Mill is an oil on canvas painting. It is 91 centimetres (36 in) in height, and 197 centimetres (78 in) in width.[1]

The Mill
Artist	Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Completion date	1882
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	91 cm × 197 cm (36 in × 78 in)[1]
Location	Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Edward Burne-Jones took twelve years to complete The Mill, starting work in 1870[1] and completing it in 1882.[2] Shortly after its completion, the painting was displayed at an exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery.[3] The Mill was inspired by The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, a mural painted by Italian Renaissance artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti between 1338 and 1340.[4] The dancing women in the painting were modelled upon women known to Burne-Jones personally: from left to right, Aglaia Coronio, Marie Stillman, and Maria Zambaco.[5] Aglaia was the daughter of Constantine Ionides, who, like Burne-Jones, was interested in art. Marie was a painter,[3] and Maria was Ionides' granddaughter.[6] At the time, Maria was Burne-Jones' mistress.[3]

The Mill is a vague and mysterious painting with no particular meaning.[3] It incorporates styles from the Aesthetic Movement and the Renaissance.[6] In the painting, three women wearing simple, Renaissance-style aesthetic dresses[3] are dancing in a garden on a summer evening. On the right of the dancing women, a musician of an indiscernible gender is standing under a loggia.[1][6] A mill pond can be seen behind the women.[6] On the other side of the pond, there are several nude men, who are presumably swimming. In the background is an unspecific landscape consisting of various designs and types of architecture.[1]