An artist's easel is a stand used to support a canvas, panel or drawing board while a painting is being made or displayed. Antique examples range from tall studio easels with winding mechanisms and adjustable shelves to lighter tripod and table-top easels.
Easels have been used since antiquity, but the large adjustable studio easel became common in the nineteenth century as professional and amateur painting flourished. Makers of artists' materials such as Winsor & Newton and Reeves supplied easels in oak, mahogany, beech and pine, and grander examples were made in carved or ebonised wood for fashionable artists' studios. Display easels, often decorative and sometimes gilded, were used in Victorian drawing rooms to show off a favourite painting or photograph. Collectors look for good timber, original ratchets, winding handles and brass fittings, and a sound, stable frame. Today antique easels are used in two ways: by working artists who appreciate their solid construction, and in interiors where they make an attractive way to display a painting, mirror or large print without hanging it on the wall.
