The Blind Girl

A blind girl resting by the road

A young blind woman sits on a grassy bank with a younger girl leaning against her. A concertina lies on her lap; she earns her living by playing music. Behind them, a storm has just passed and a double rainbow arches over the fields.

John Everett Millais painted The Blind Girl between 1854 and 1856. The landscape was painted outdoors near Winchelsea in Sussex. It belongs to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

One sister sees, the other cannot

The blind girl turns her face up to the sun with her eyes closed. The younger girl presses against her and looks back at the rainbow, the beauty her sister cannot see.

A small label on the blind girl’s chest reads “Pity a blind,” the kind of sign travelling beggars wore.

A double rainbow

The double rainbow shines against a dark sky. Millais is said to have originally painted the colours of the second rainbow in the same order as the first; after a friend pointed out that a secondary rainbow reverses them, he corrected it.

Feeling the world through touch

The blind girl’s right hand rests in the grass, fingers touching the blades and small flowers. Millais shows her experiencing the landscape through touch and warmth rather than sight.

A small tortoiseshell butterfly has landed on her shawl. She cannot see it. The detail is painted with the minute precision typical of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which Millais had co-founded.

Questions about The Blind Girl

Where was it painted?

The landscape was painted near Winchelsea, Sussex, between 1854 and 1856.

Where is the original?

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

What does the label say?

“Pity a blind,” a sign worn by travelling beggars.

How large is it?

82.6 × 62.2 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Sources and image credit

• Wikimedia Commons: The Blind Girl (Birmingham Museums Trust)
• Birmingham Museums Trust

Faithful public-domain reproduction of The Blind Girl (1854 to 1856), via Wikimedia Commons (Birmingham Museums Trust). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.