284 PAINTING MATERIALS
Cabinet Saucer (see Saucer).
Camel Hair, a term inaccurately applied to a fine-haired brush, usually a
small, pointed one but also a large wash brush. This hair is from a squirrel native
to Russia and Siberia (see Brush).
Camera Lucida. A prism is used in this instrument to deflect the rays of light
from an object and to throw the image of this object onto a paper where it can be
traced. Meder (p. 2,14) mentions it as a modern instrument. It is illustrated in the
catalogue of C. Roberson for about 1848. Perhaps its chief contemporary use is
as an accessory to microscopes. With it drawings can be made from the magnified
field.
Camera Obscura. This differs from the camera lucida in being a more direct
and simple though more awkward apparatus. One type was, in effect, a large box
in which the artist sat and executed drawings (figure 5). In another, the image or
view was conveyed through a small hole in which a double convex lens was placed
so that it threw this image on translucent paper or on ground glass. Here, of
course, the image is seen inverted. According to Meder (p. 550), the camera
obscura was invented by Erasmus Reinhold of Wittenberg in 1540. Certain
improvements were made by Porta in 1558, and it was made into a transportable
unit by Hook in 1679. Probably it was little used after the camera lucida had been
perfected.
Canvas Pliers. For stretching canvas over the stretching frame, painters fre-
quently use pliers or pincers made with a wide nose, corrugated in order to hold
well on the edge of the fabric (figure 6, £). This tool is common in studios but
seems to have had only a rather recent use. It is mentioned in catalogues of 1889
and times since then. It is not noticed earlier or referred to in earlier literature on
painting practice.
Cast. Models in the form of plaster casts have been for many centuries a
regular part of the studio furnishings of painters and of painting academies. At
what point the cast came in to supplant the antique statue or fragment is not
clear, for most of the evidence about the use of such material is found in paintings
and drawings where a distinction between the two can not be made. The earliest
of these to be noticed are paintings of the XVI century, among them a * Portrait of
an Artist,' attributed to Lorenzo Lotto and in a private collection in London. In
this a number of fragmentary figures, probably stone sculptures, are seen with
other working materials. By the XVII century casts are commonly represented in
studios and frequently students are shown drawing from them. Works by Ryckaert,
Eglon van der Neer, and Gottfried Schalcken contain this type of subject as does,
later, the work of Chardin.
Cauterium. Whether or not encaustic painting as practiced by the ancients
was a method which involved the use of melted wax and heated instruments, some
of the tools found in the equipment of ancient painters and mentioned in the
literature were of a type which might well have been used in this way. One of