A Muller Grinds Pigment on a Stone Slab
A muller is a stone tool for grinding pigment. Artists used them for centuries before paint came in tubes.
A muller is a flat-bottomed stone or glass tool used to grind pigment into oil on a slab. Before commercial paint, every artist or apprentice made colour this way: pigment was mulled with oil until the particles were fully dispersed. The tube of ready-mixed paint arrived in the 1840s and changed painting practice, making outdoor work practical.
- A pigment-grinding tool. *A glass muller.*
- To grind. *Mull the pigment.*
- Mull — to ponder. *Mull it over.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | muller | A stone muller. |
| Plural | mullers | Two mullers. |
| Verb | mull | Mull the colour. |
| Related | mulled wine | Hot mulled wine. |
| Related | pigment | Ground pigment. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The pigment is mulled into linseed oil.Traditional paint making.
- Mull it over means consider it.A separate sense.
- Paint tubes arrived in the 1840s.Which made painting outdoors practical.
Traditional paint making
- Pigment — the coloured powder
- Binder — usually linseed oil for oil paint
- Muller and slab — the grinding tools
- Dispersion — grinding until every particle is coated in oil
- Collapsible tube — patented in 1841, transforming outdoor painting
From *mull*, to grind or pulverise, from Middle English. The sense of pondering probably comes from a separate root.
Why did paint tubes matter?
They let artists carry ready-mixed colour outdoors, which made painting directly from nature practical and helped enable Impressionism.
Is *mull it over* the same word?
Probably not. The pondering sense appears to come from a different root, though the grinding image is often assumed.