Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Pictor

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PICTOR (γραφεύς). A painter or artist who exercises any branch of the pictorial art. (Cic. Acad. iv. 7. Hor. A. P. 9.) The illustration (Pictor/1.1) represents a portrait painter taking the likeness of a person who is sitting before him, from a design on the walls of a house at Pompeii, which, though a palbable caricature affords a very good idea of the interior of a Roman artist's studio. He sits upon a low stool in front of his easel, with a tray of colours beside him, and a pot of water to cleanse the only brush he uses; both which circumstances indicate an artist in water-colours, or in that style of encaustic painting in which the colours were laid on with a liquid brush (see ENCAUSTICA). Fronting him is the sitter, and behind, at the further end of the room, a pupil drawing on his board; while two assistants are engaged on the right in preparing the colours, probably mixed with wax, in a shallow pan placed over some hot coals, a further indication of the encaustic process. The heated coals, observable in the original, are lost in our engraving, from the inadvertance of the draughtsman, or in consequence of the very reduced scale upon which the drawing is executed. It will be remarked that the artist does not use a palette, which would not be required for either of the styles mentioned; but other examples amongst the Pompeian paintings exhibit a palette in the left hand (Mus. Borb. vi. 3.), of similar form to those used at the present day. Nevertheless, it is extremely probable that this article was not much employed by the ancient painters, as no name for it is known to exist either in the Greek or Latin language.

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  Pictor/1.1