Busacca Gallery

Rare Large Antique Italian Gallery Display Easel – Hand-Carved Wood with Gold Gilding. This rare and impressive large antique Italian gallery display easel features exquisite hand-carved wood construction with elegant gold gilding throughout. Crafted with exceptional attention to detail, the easel showcases classic Italian artistry and craftsmanship, making it both a functional display piece and a decorative work of art. Its substantial size and ornate design make it ideal for displaying fine paintings, mirrors, or important artworks in a gallery, home, or collection. The easel is 79 inches tall and is approximately 24 inches wide at the bottom. Easels have been in use since the time of the ancient Egyptians. In the 1st century, Pliny the Elder made reference to a "large panel" placed upon an easel. Around the 1810s, Empress Marie-Louise reportedly presented an easel with the monogram of Napoleon's last consort to her painting teacher, miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Isabey. An easel can be full height, designed for standing by itself on the floor. Shorter easels can be designed for use on a table. Easel painting is a term in art history for the type of midsize painting that would have been painted on an easel, as opposed to a fresco wall painting, a large altarpiece or other piece that would have been painted resting on a floor, a small cabinet painting, or a miniature created while sitting at a desk, though perhaps also on an angled support. It does not refer to the way the painting is meant to be displayed; most easel paintings are intended for display framed and hanging on a wall.

An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, painters traditionally use an easel to support a painting while they work on it, normally standing up; easels are also sometimes used to display finished paintings and prints. Artists' easels are still typically made of wood, in functional designs that have changed little for centuries, or even millennia, though new materials and designs exist. Easels are typically made from wood, aluminum or steel.