A man is depicted full face; he set his back and both hands against a long horizontal wooden handle of a hand mill. The man's head is shaved and twined around with a thin braid. He is dressed in a blue shirt and knee-length gray pants. The man is barefoot. The mill consists of a large round disk made of stone with grindstones attached to it horizontally. There is a round wooden box with a square hole under the disk. The etching comes from the album "Chinese Customs and National Costumes", which includes 60 images of Chinese people engaged in various activities. Each image is accompanied by an explanation in German; some of them are written in French. In the eighteenth century, artists in Canton (Guangzhou) in southern China created such paintings for Europeans seeking to learn more about China and its people.