The palette is the flat surface where painters mix colors before applying them. Learn its history, shapes, materials, and how artists from Vermeer to Monet arranged their paints.
Look at any self-portrait of a painter from the 17th century to the present and you will see the same object in their non-painting hand: a flat board with a thumb hole, covered in smears of paint. That is the palette, and it is the second most important tool a painter owns after the brush. The palette is where paint is arranged, mixed, tested, and sometimes discarded. It is a color laboratory held in one hand while the other hand does the work.
A palette is a flat surface used by painters to arrange and mix colors while working. The word comes from the same Latin root as "pallet," meaning a small flat board. In its traditional form, a palette is a shaped piece of wood with a thumb hole cut into one edge, allowing the painter to hold it in one hand while gripping brushes with the same hand's fingers. In a broader sense, a palette also refers to the specific selection of colors an artist uses for a painting, though this entry focuses on the physical tool.
This entry covers the history of the palette from medieval paint trays to modern studio surfaces, the different shapes and materials used, how painters arrange colors on a palette, and how to choose one for your practice.
The palette serves two functions. First, it provides a surface for mixing paint to achieve the right color and consistency before applying it to the canvas. Second, it holds the raw colors the painter has chosen for the session, arranged in a way that makes them easy to access and combine. A well-organized palette lets a painter work without stopping to hunt for a color, while a poorly organized one slows everything down.
The physical design of the traditional palette is engineered for ergonomics. A bevel-edged thumb hole and a cutaway section on the edge allow the painter to hold the palette, a handful of brushes, and sometimes a small cup of oil or solvent, all in the same hand. The palette is thicker at the thumb-hole side and thinner toward the "tail," distributing weight so the arm does not fatigue during long sessions. For left-handed painters, the configuration is reversed. This design was standardized by the 17th century and has changed little since.
The palette also functions as what art historian Charlotte Guichard has called a "color laboratory," a space where scientific color theories are transformed into practical painterly substances. The painter arranges raw pigments in a set scheme, then mixes them in the middle and lower areas of the palette to achieve the tones needed for a specific passage. The arrangement is not random. It follows a logic that the painter internalizes through repetition.
There is no clear evidence of palette use in classical antiquity or the early Middle Ages. Most depictions of medieval painters at work show pigments in shallow shells or saucers, often with a wide range of colors arranged separately. A 14th-century English encyclopedia shows a painter with nine saucers of different tints. The painter mixed colors in these saucers rather than on a shared surface.
The earliest depictions of palettes appear around 1400, notably in Boccaccio's book Famous Women, which illustrates women painters holding shaped boards with paint on them. These early palettes resemble bread boards with a handle. Someone then had the idea of making a hole in the handle big enough to put a thumb through, which let the painter support the palette horizontally on the thumb while using the remaining fingers to hold brushes and a mahl stick. Later, the thumb hole moved from the handle into the flat of the palette itself, creating the kidney-shaped or oval form we recognize today.
The earliest written description of palettes appears in the accounts of the Dukes of Burgundy in the late 1460s, where they are described as "trenchers of wood for them to put oil colors and to hold them in the hand." Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, palettes depicted in engravings and paintings were small and held few colors. Cennino Cennini, in his 15th-century painting manual, instructs painters to prepare just three tones for flesh painting plus red for touches to cheeks and lips. The limited palette reflected both the cost of pigments and the working method of the time, which involved pre-mixing specific tones for each passage of the painting.
By the 17th century, the familiar painter's palette with a thumb hole had replaced the older rectangular kind with a handle. Vermeer's 1676 probate inventory listed three palettes alongside two easels. In Vermeer's time, palettes remained relatively small, 30 to 40 centimeters long. They grew larger only in the 19th century, when the expansion of available pigments and the rise of plein air painting demanded more mixing space. Some 19th-century palettes were as large as half a tabletop, shaped to curve against the painter's body.
The 18th-century painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun preferred an oval palette made of apple or walnut wood. The Getty Research Institute's Artists' Things series documents how 18th-century palettes were prepared by coating the surface numerous times with walnut oil until the wood could absorb no more. Without this preparation, the binder in oil paint would seep into the wood, leaving the paint to dry out and stain the surface.
The classic handheld palette is oval or kidney-shaped, made from a hardwood like walnut, cherry, mahogany, or beech. These woods have tight grains that can be polished smooth, creating an ideal surface for mixing and cleaning. The wood is sealed with linseed oil or varnish to prevent absorption of paint binder. Over time, wooden palettes develop a patina from accumulated paint, which some painters find useful for judging new color mixtures against the warm brown ground. The warm tone of wood also helps painters who work on a brownish-primed canvas, since colors mixed on a wooden palette do not change perceptibly when applied to the canvas. The main drawback is that wood is porous. Even sealed palettes absorb some oil over time, which can alter the freshness of colors.
Glass and porcelain palettes are non-porous, which means they do not absorb oil from paint. Colors stay fresher longer, and cleaning is as simple as scraping the surface with a palette knife. Glass palettes are typically made of tempered glass with a white or neutral grey backing, which provides a consistent color reference for mixing. The downside is weight and fragility. Glass palettes are usually used in the studio rather than held in the hand. They are favored by oil painters who want to see colors against a neutral white surface.
Disposable paper palettes are pads of coated paper designed for mixing paint. When the session is over, the painter tears off the top sheet and throws it away. These are convenient for quick sessions, classroom use, or travel. They are not environmentally ideal, and the coated surface does not handle heavy mixing as well as wood or glass. They are best for acrylic and oil painters who want to avoid cleanup.
Stay-wet palettes are sealed trays designed to keep acrylic and gouache paints workable for days. They use a permeable membrane over a damp sponge, which keeps the paint hydrated through evaporation. These are essential for acrylic painters, since acrylic paint dries by evaporation and can skin over in minutes on a traditional palette.
The arrangement of colors on a palette follows a system that painters have used for centuries. Raw colors are placed along the top edge, usually arranged from light to dark, with white nearest the thumb hole. The middle and lower areas of the palette are left clear for mixing. Roger de Piles, in his 1684 manual Les premiers elements de la peinture pratique, provided a diagram of the top register of "couleurs capitales" (principal colors): lead white, yellow ocher, brown red, red lake, stil de grain, green earth, umber, and bone black, arranged from lightest to darkest. Additional pigments like vermilion, massicot, or ultramarine could be added below.
This system, with variations, was followed through the 18th century and into the 19th. Most portrait palettes from this period show a top register of whites, yellows, reds, browns, and blacks arranged roughly lightest to darkest from thumb hole to tail. Painters developed their own idiosyncratic habits to suit their style and subject matter. Some used as few as four or five colors. The limited palette was not a sign of poverty but of discipline. Painters like Whistler and Zorn demonstrated that a restricted palette could produce a full range of effects.
The 19th century saw a dramatic expansion of available pigments. Synthetic ultramarine, cadmium yellows and reds, and chrome greens gave painters more colors than ever before. Palettes grew larger to accommodate them. Monet reportedly used a palette with as many as 18 colors, though he arranged them in the same light-to-dark pattern. The principle of organization remained even as the number of pigments expanded.
Vermeer's palette, as documented by the Essential Vermeer website, was a typical 17th-century wooden palette with a thumb hole. His probate inventory listed three palettes. In Frans van Mieris's allegorical depiction of Pictura, the figure holds a wooden palette showing the layout of pigments for painting flesh tones, with colors arranged from light to dark. This layout was standard for Dutch Golden Age painters.
Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun (1755-1842) used an oval walnut palette prepared with multiple coats of walnut oil. Her self-portraits show her holding the palette in her left hand with brushes and a mahl stick, the classic pose of the 18th-century court portraitist. The Getty's research on her palette documents the preparation process and the specific woods preferred by 18th-century painters.
Monet's palette expanded throughout his career. Early works used a relatively limited range, but by the 1890s, when he was painting his Haystacks and Rouen Cathedral series, he was using a large palette with many synthetic pigments. His arrangement still followed the traditional light-to-dark system, but the number of colors had grown to accommodate the effects of light he was chasing.
Frank Auerbach's palette, visible in photographs of his London studio, is a large wooden board covered in thick, dried paint accumulated over years. He rarely cleans it. The dried paint forms a topography of its own, and the surface has become so built up that it functions almost as a relief sculpture alongside his paintings.
For oil painters, a traditional wooden palette is still the best choice for handheld work. Choose walnut, beech, or birch, and seal it with linseed oil before first use. For studio mixing where you do not need to hold the palette, a glass palette on a white surface gives you the truest color reference and the easiest cleanup. For acrylic painters, a stay-wet palette is essential to prevent paint from drying during a session.
Arrange your colors consistently every time you paint. The arrangement becomes muscle memory, and you will be able to reach for a color without looking away from the canvas. Place whites nearest the thumb hole, warm colors next, cool colors further along, and darks at the far end. Leave the center of the palette clear for mixing. Clean the mixing area between passages to avoid muddying your colors, but leave the raw colors in place.
For more on how color works in painting, read our entries on complementary colors and color as a formal element. To understand the tool that applies paint mixed on a palette, see our entry on the brush. And for a related tool used alongside the palette, read about the palette knife, which is designed for mixing paint on the palette surface.
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