The Miller’s Tale I (from The Canterbury Tales II series)

London, 1972

Etching and aquatint on paper

 652 x 462 mm

Due to licencing rules, the Barber is currently unable to reproduce images of this work for our website. If you wish to view this work, you can make an appointment to see it in the Prints and Drawings Study Room.

Known primarily for figurative sculpture of monumental horses, men and birds, Frink was also an innovative printmaker, working the metal plate almost as a sculptural surface. This print is one of 19 illustrating The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s famously bawdy collection written at the end of the fourteenth century. Frink clearly relished Chaucer’s frank descriptions of lust and love, perhaps in tune with the new sexual freedoms of the 1960s and 70s. The Miller’s Tale, as told to his fellow pilgrims, relates how two lovers, Alisoun and Nicholas, fool both her husband and another admirer, Absolon. Frink’s use of unmarked paper or negative space to represent bare flesh is particularly striking.

Gifted by the Rt Revd Mark Santer, March 2022 (No. 2022.11)