Maulstick

This painting by Adriaen van Ostade shows a mahlstick in use in the artist's studio
Georg Friedrich Kersting's studio portrait of Caspar David Friedrich (1819) shows the painter holding a maulstick.

A mahlstick, or maulstick, is a stick with a soft leather or padded head used by painters to support the hand with which they hold their paintbrush. The word derives from the Dutch maalstok 'painter's stick', from malen 'to paint'.

In 16th- through 19th-century paintings of artists, including self-portraits, the maulstick is often depicted as part of the painter's equipment.

References

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