easel

Definition

An upright frame, typically on three legs, for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.

Etymology

Borrowed from Dutch ezel (“donkey; easel”), from Middle Dutch esel (“donkey”), from Proto-West Germanic *asil, from Latin asellus (“young ass or small donkey”), diminutive of asinus (“ass, donkey”), ultimately from an unknown source in Asia Minor. Essentially, the stand that a painting is placed on is being likened to a donkey carrying a burden; compare horse (“a frame with legs used to support something”), as in clotheshorse and sawhorse.

Example Sentences

• "Chevalet, (chaſſis de bois ſur lequel les Peintres poſent leurs Tableaux quand ils travaillent) a Painter's Eaſel."
• "His [Raphael's] eaſel works ſtand in a lower degree of eſtimation; for though he continually, till the day of his death, embelliſhed his works more and more with the addition of theſe lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of ſome; yet he never arrived at ſuch perfection as to make him an object of imitation."
• "[H]is constant advice to students was to copy nature, and if they wished to draw a tree well, to place their easels in a field, and copy the tree exactly as it stood before them."

Related Words