Meaning & use
mahlstick
Last updated
A long stick with a padded ball at one end, used by painters to steady and support the hand while working on fine detail.
See it in a sentence
The portrait artist rested his brush hand on a mahlstick to keep his lines steady.
Old master painters relied on the mahlstick when adding delicate highlights to a canvas.
A note on using this word
The word comes from the Dutch maalstok, meaning painting stick; maulstick is the more common English spelling today.
Words with a similar meaning
maulstick
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