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PAINTING MATERIALS

It is heavier and more complicated (figure 11). The base is broad and rides on
four casters or small wheels, one of which is usually adjustable in height. From
the base rise posts firmly fixed, into which a sliding frame is slotted. This frame
carries the painting in a shelf that has a wooden rail at its front. The top of the
painting is held by another sliding member which comes down over its edge and
is fastened with a set screw. The narrow shelf or rail is usually moved up and down
by means of a worm gear operated by a crank. Another adjustment permits the
painting to be tilted forward, also by means of the crank. Modifications of this
as of the simple three-legged type are Innumerable, and some easels have been
made which combine the aspects of the two.

FIGURE 8. The desk of a scribe, according to Johnston (p. 50), is a drawing board to
which a piece of stout paper or vellum is fastened with thumb tacks. Under this is a
writing pad usually made of blotting paper. The tape or string around the top of the
board holds the writing paper in place.

There seems to be no historical limit to the simpler easel. It is manufactured
and sold now and probably has been the property of the painter since separate
and portable pictures were first made. It is found in studios as these are shown in
the works of the Renaissance and until quite recent times. Often, in the easels
represented, a rest board is laid across the pegs, and these pegs vary in shape and
in ornamentation. The swinging leg is hinged in different ways and the top is
finished in a variety of shapes. Far more complicated means for holding pictures
are, however, occasionally illustrated during the Renaissance and later times.
One striking example is also the earliest instance known of the representation of
an easel. This is in a relief on the wall of the xnastaba of Mereruka (see Prentice
Duell). It is an upright pair of posts which Duell considers to have been fixed in
a base to permit the entire frame to be moved. The painting was supported on
notched members which swung forward at right angles to the post or swung back
out of the way if other such members at a different height were needed. Pliny
(XXXV, 81) says that when Apelles went to call on Protogenes, he found a soli-
tary old woman keeping watch over a large panel that was placed on an easel.
The studio easel, as described above and as shown by artists* colormen of the
present, was devised and largely developed during the XIX century. The earliest,
said to have been of French manufacture, had worm gears made of wood.