TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

303

By the XVIII century, however, this had somewhat changed. An engraving from
a self-portrait by Hogarth shows a palette knife of the spatula type. In 'A
Painter's Studio* attributed to Francois Boucher, in a private collection in Paris,
a broad spatula kind of knife is seen beside the grinding slab. A dagger-shaped
tool, much like the so-called 'painting knife/ can be noticed in the thumb hole of

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FIGURE 17. Modern shapes of the painter's palette: (a) a rectangular palette with a block
for grip near the thumb hole, used by John Constable and now exhibited at the Royal
Academy, London (no. 330); (b) this shape is seen as early as the XVI century in the
work of Pieter Breughel the Elder (particularly in a drawing, * A Painter in his Studio,*
Bayonne) and later in the work of G. Dow, 'Portrait of the Painter* (Cheltenham
Municipal Art Gallery). Contrary to the custom in those seen in figure 16, where the
thumb hole is either in a kind of handle near the middle or is in the upper part, in these
more recent types of palette, the thumb hole is placed nearer the center of one edge or
slightly below the center, leaving the upper edge of the palette for distribution and mix-
ing of paint. This is a slight change, and the palette shapes throughout the Middle Ages
and Renaissance seem to have been very numerous. At IT is a standard modern palette,
generally rectangular in outline; at d is the oval palette; and at e the so-called 'arm'
palette.
the palette lying on the floor in Turner's 'Watteau in his Studio* in the Tate
Gallery. When artists* colormen began to list palette knives, there were two or
three materials used for them. C. Roberson and Company mention steel, ivory,
and iron in a catalogue of about 1840, and the same materials are mentioned in