easel

noun

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

   “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.”

   “[O]ur little craft [a canoe] carried several packs of Indian dresses and other articles, which I had purchased of the Indians; and also my canvass and easel, and our culinary articles, which were few and simple; […]”

   “Three sons … three! And not one sees fit to throw in with the old man. No … we have an easel painter, a stuntman, and a … a …”