Recumbant figures, with background of buildings and water. Signed "E.B.J. 1861". A design for Mr. G. P. Boyce's piano (a small upright, designed by Mr. Boyce himself), the background resembling those of the early Venetian painters.
This drawing was given to Madame Yvette Guilbert in London by a relative of Burne-Jones, following a conference in which she had spoken about the painter. Below right on a rectangular stone: 'E. B. J. 1861'. Composition executed by Burne-Jones shortly after his trip to Italy in 1859. Perhaps the figure lying on the left is that of his young wife, Miss Mac Donald, who was married that year.
In a recently discovered album of photographs of paintings by Old Masters, from the collection of George Howard, a reproduction of "A Music Party" then attributed to Giorgione (now thought to be the work of Palma Vecchio) in the collection of Lord Northwick, is likely to have been the inspiration for the background mills and river for this drawing. Burne-Jones had access either to an original reproduction (published in 1857 by Caldesi & Montechi ) or to this album. Howard and he had become friends from 1866. The idea contained in The Mill (1870-82), is an amplification of that found in Girls in a Meadow (The Louvre) of 1861, an interesting contrast between girls relaxing and an idealised industrial landscape which is also explored in the later painting of The Mill.