Every other easel in the world has a back. It faces one way, so it lives against a wall, and whatever is on it is the only thing anyone sees. For a studio that is fine. For a stand at a market, a gallery hang, an open studio weekend or a class demo, it quietly halves what you can show from the space you are paying for.

The Mabef M19 is the one that faces both ways. Two canvas holders, one on each side, each with its own ratchet and its own tray, on a single H frame that takes up about as much floor as a bar stool. Put it in the middle of a room and it works from every angle instead of against one wall.

Mabef built it for exhibitions, shows and conventions, and that is where it earns its keep fastest. It holds 135cm of canvas per side and 25kg in total, adjusts from 160cm to 265cm, and rolls on castors so you can move the hang without carrying it.

Perfect for

What makes the M19 different

Each side really is independent

This is the detail that separates a proper double sided easel from a single easel with a second ledge nailed on. Both faces have their own central post, their own canvas holder and their own ratchet, so you can hang a tall portrait on one side and a small square study on the other and set each at the height it wants. Both have a canvas and brush tray, so the tools stay with the work instead of migrating to whichever side has the shelf.

The trade off worth knowing before you order is the canvas width. The clear span between the posts is 56cm, so this is an easel for work up to about that wide. If you paint metre wide canvases, the M19 is not your easel and we would rather tell you now.

Why beech

Mabef build in oiled, stain resistant beech. Beech is dense and dimensionally stable, which is the unglamorous reason these frames are still square years later while cheaper pine ones develop a lean. On an easel that gets packed, driven to a show, unpacked and rebuilt, that matters more than it does on something that never leaves a studio corner.

The oiled finish is the practical half. Paint sits on the surface instead of soaking into the grain, so a wipe with a rag keeps it presentable. On an easel that is part of how your work is seen, looking after itself is a feature.

Specifications

For full details of the Mabef warranty, including how to register your easel, see the Mabef warranty page.

Mabef, and why we carry so much of it

Mabef have been making easels in Italy since 1948 and have never once diversified into anything else. No brushes, no paint, no pencil cases. Just easels, for three quarters of a century, by a family who clearly think about hinges more than is strictly healthy. We find that faintly wonderful, and it shows in the joinery and in the warranty they are willing to put behind it.

Art Shed carries over forty Mabef lines, one of the deepest Mabef ranges in Australia: field easels, studio masts with cranks, lyre easels, sketch boxes, table easels, sculpture trestles, print racks, stools and the full run of beech palettes. Not a token three models and a special order form. If you are building a studio around Mabef, or matching an easel you already own, we almost certainly have the rest of the family in stock.

Getting the most out of your M19

Build it where it will live. It is a bolt together frame and it is much easier to assemble in the room than to carry assembled through a doorway.

Balance the two sides. Seventeen kilograms on a compact base is stable, but a heavy framed work on one face and nothing on the other is not the way to leave it standing in a busy room.

Set both ratchets before the show, not during it. Adjusting one side moves the frame, and a room full of people is the wrong time to discover that.

Keep the trays for tools, not for storage. They are canvas and brush trays and they sit at the base of each face. Loading them with heavy gear raises nothing but your centre of gravity problems.

Then put two paintings on it and stand it where people walk past both sides. That is the entire point of this easel and it does the job better than anything else Mabef make.

Questions about the Mabef M19 Double Sided Studio Easel