# Paintbrush > A tuft of hair that carries paint - Date: c. 4,000 BCE - Era: Prehistory - Domain: [Tools & Making](https://lastcodex.org/en/domains/tools/) - Rebuild stage: II (Settlement) - Difficulty: 2/5 - URL: https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/paintbrush/ A paintbrush is a tuft of hair, bristle or plant fibre fixed to a handle. Dipped in paint, the tuft holds the liquid between its hairs and lets it out again when it is drawn across a surface. Potters of the Yangshao culture in China were painting with pointed brushes by about 4000 BCE, and fine brushes are still made by tying a bundle of hair and setting it in a ferrule. ![Paintbrush · A tuft of hair that carries paint](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/plate.DgFAqTHi_ZmsVh.webp) ## Legend 1. Point formed by the natural hair tips 2. Belly holding paint between the hairs 3. Thread tied round the hair roots 4. Feather quill used as a ferrule 5. Wooden handle ## What it is A paintbrush has three parts. The tuft is a bundle of hairs, bristles or plant fibres that takes up the [paint](/en/inventions/paint/). The ferrule clamps the root end of the tuft and joins it to the handle; it can be a cord binding, a section of feather quill or a metal sleeve. The handle keeps the hand away from the wet paint and steers the tuft. The tuft decides what a brush can do. Stiff hog bristles push thick oil paint around. Soft hair from squirrel, sable, ox or goat holds thin paint and draws fine lines. A round brush comes to a point, a flat one leaves a broad, even stroke. Plant fibres such as palm, rush or grass were used in ancient Egypt, and brushes are now also made of synthetic filaments. ## How it works ![Two identical round brushes with brass ferrules side by side, tips down: on the left a dry tuft of loose, slightly spread hairs, on the right a wet tuft whose hairs close into a sharp point with a drop hanging from it](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v3.C81fu8Di_Zz6Fr9.webp) _Dry, the tuft is a loose bundle; wet, its hairs pull together into a point._ A dry tuft is a loose bundle. Dipped in a liquid, it soaks it up into the narrow gaps between the hairs, the way a liquid climbs up a thin tube. The same surface tension that holds the paint in pulls the wet hairs together, so a good round brush closes into a sharp point. The outer hairs bend in until their tips meet and close the end of the tuft, which keeps the load from dripping. The thick middle of the tuft, called the belly, is the reservoir. When the brush is pressed on a surface, the tuft spreads, the hairs come apart and the paint flows onto the surface it touches. Lifted, the elastic hairs spring back and the point re-forms. Pressure on the tuft sets the width of the stroke. A brush depends on the natural tips of its hairs. Each hair tapers to a fine end, and the brush maker lines up these ends to form the point; they are never trimmed, since a cut hair ends bluntly. Hog bristles split at the tip into several fine ends called flags, which hold more paint than a single point. ## How to do it This makes a small round brush with a quill ferrule, the way Cennino Cennini described around 1400. You need a pinch of soft hair sold cleaned for brush making, a goose or duck feather, waxed thread, a straight twig or thin dowel that fits snugly into the quill, a little wood glue, a fine comb, a sharp craft knife, a cutting board and a thimble or very small cup. Comb the hair to remove short and broken hairs. Stand the bundle tips down in the thimble and tap the thimble on the table several times so that all the tips settle at the same level. Take the bundle out, keeping the tips together, and tie it firmly near the root end with several turns of waxed thread, then knot it. Trim the root ends level just behind the tie, and never touch the tips. Put a drop of glue on the cut roots. Cut the feather's shaft at both ends to make an open tube a little narrower at one end than the bundle at its tie. Push the bundle into the wide end, tips first, until the tie jams in the narrowing and the hairs stick out of the narrow end. Cennini noted that a short, firm tuft is easier to work with. Push the glued end of the handle into the wide end of the quill and wrap a few turns of thread round the quill to tighten it on the handle. Wet the brush, shape the point between your fingers and let it dry hanging tip down. Test it with water or [ink](/en/inventions/writing-ink/) on paper. If the hairs splay or slip out, the tie or the quill was too loose. **Safety.** Cut on a board and always move the knife away from your fingers. Use glue with the window open and keep it off your skin. Raw animal hair can carry the spores of anthrax, a serious disease that enters through cuts or is breathed in with dust: use hair sold cleaned for brush making, never hair pulled from a dead animal, and wash your hands after work. ## History and evolution In China, the Metropolitan Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art read the fluid lines on Neolithic painted pottery of the Yangshao culture as the work of a pointed brush. The Met dates the beginning of this painted pottery of the Yellow River basin to about 4000 BCE, while the Minneapolis museum places the brush-painted pieces in the third millennium BCE. Some of the oldest brushes that survive come from Egypt. ![An Egyptian brush of palm fibre: a thick bundle of coarse fibres bound round its upper half with twisted cord, the lower ends frayed and stained red](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v1.zKH08_rv_Z1IA1zp.webp) _An Egyptian painter's brush of palm fibre bound with cord, with red paint still on its tip._ The Metropolitan Museum holds nine brushes of halfa grass found in the debris of the tomb of the official Meketre at Thebes, which the museum and Dorothea Arnold date to the early reign of Amenemhat I, about 1981–1975 BCE; one still bears traces of red paint. From the New Kingdom come palm-fibre brushes, one with red paint still on it from the palace of Amenhotep III at Malqata, and another of plant fibre from the painters' village of Deir el-Medina, now in Turin. Scribes wrote with thin rushes; an ivory palette of Princess Meketaten, a daughter of Akhenaten, still holds its rush brushes beside cakes of red, yellow and black. Chinese tombs of the Warring States period, between the fifth and third centuries BCE, held brushes of hair set in a bamboo or wooden handle. The brush remained the writing tool of China. ![A flat bristle brush with a tin ferrule, round where it holds the wooden handle and pressed flat towards the bristles, with one crimped band at its base](https://lastcodex.org/_astro/v2.QO8-iRob_16Fxdy.webp) _A flat bristle brush: the metal ferrule, round over the handle, flattened where it grips the tuft._ Around 1400 Cennini told painters to make their own brushes. He took the hairs from the middle of squirrel tails, tied them with thread or waxed silk and pushed them into the quill of a vulture, goose, hen or dove feather according to the size wanted, with a twig for a handle. Pig bristles were tied in the same way. Metal ferrules were probably introduced in the eighteenth century and spread in the nineteenth, when machines took over the slow binding by hand; the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya dates them to the nineteenth century. At first they were only glued to the handle and came off when the wood took up water, so makers pressed crimps into the metal to grip it. A round ferrule could also be squeezed flat, and the flat bristle brushes made this way gave the French Impressionists their broad, even dabs of colour. ## Key facts - Brush-painted pottery of the Yangshao culture, China: From about 4000 BCE - Cennini's brush, about 1400: Squirrel-tail hair tied and set in a feather quill - Metal ferrule: Probably 18th century, common in the 19th - Hog bristle: Split tips, called flags, that carry more paint ## Requires - [Paint](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/paint/): Coloured grains held in a binder (100,000 years ago) - [Rope & Cordage](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/rope/): Twisted fibres that hold the world (46,000 years ago) - [Glues and bonding](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/adhesives/): Joining materials through adhesion (200,000 years ago) ## Leads to - [Toothbrush](https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/toothbrush/): Scrubbing the teeth with fibres, from chewed twigs to bristles (c. 100 BCE) ## Sources - [Brush, grass, from the tomb of Meketre (TT 280), Thebes, ca. 1981–1975 B.C.](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/562010), The Metropolitan Museum of Art - [Brush, halfa grass, from the tomb of Meketre (28.3.2), Thebes, ca. 1981–1975 B.C.](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/562011), The Metropolitan Museum of Art - [Amenemhat I and the Early Twelfth Dynasty at Thebes (Metropolitan Museum Journal 26, 1991)](https://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Amenemhat_I_and_the_Early_Twelfth_Dynasty_at_Thebes_The_Metropolitan_Museum_Journal_v_26_1991.pdf), Dorothea Arnold - [Paint Brush, palm fiber with red paint, Malqata, ca. 1386–1347 BCE](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551903), The Metropolitan Museum of Art - [Writing Palette and Brushes of Princess Meketaten, ca. 1347–1330 BCE](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544694), The Metropolitan Museum of Art - [Brush, plant fibre, Deir el-Medina, New Kingdom (Suppl. 7661)](https://collezioni.museoegizio.it/en-GB/material/S_7661), Museo Egizio, Turin - [Brush of palm fibres bound with strung fibres, traces of red pigment (EA36889)](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA36889), The British Museum - [Neolithic Period in China (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/neolithic-period-in-china), The Metropolitan Museum of Art - [Brush and cover, China (object 5346)](https://collections.artsmia.org/art/5346/brush-and-cover-china), Minneapolis Institute of Art - [Brushing up a legacy (28 May 2024)](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202405/28/WS6655401ea31082fc043c9862_2.html), China Daily - [Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman's Handbook (Il Libro dell'Arte), chapters 63–66 (trans. D. V. Thompson)](https://noteaccess.com/Texts/Cennini/Contents.htm), noteaccess.com - [How to Make Medieval Artists' Tools (after Cennini, trans. L. Broecke)](https://www.medievalists.net/2016/08/how-to-make-medieval-artists-tools/), Medievalists.net - [The American Artist's Tools and Materials for On-Site Oil Sketching (JAIC 38, 1999, pp. 21–32), 2.2 The metal brush ferrule](https://cool.culturalheritage.org/jaic/articles/jaic38-01-003_2.html), Alexander Katlan, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation - [Glossary: Ferrule](https://www.museunacional.cat/ca/glossary_a/ferrule), Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - [Paintbrush (How Products Are Made, vol. 5)](https://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Paintbrush.html), Gale / Advameg - [Bristle (CAMEO, Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online)](https://cameo.mfa.org/wiki/Bristle), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - [Artists' Hog Brush](https://eu.winsornewton.com/products/artists-hog-brush-artists-hog-filbert), Winsor & Newton - [Bullier, Pinceaux Léonard: a passion (interview with a French brush maker)](https://www.premiumbeautynews.com/en/bullier-pinceaux-leonard-a-passion,4497), Premium Beauty News - [Capillary rise between elastic sheets (Journal of Fluid Mechanics 548, 2006)](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022112005007718), Ho-Young Kim, L. Mahadevan, Cambridge University Press - [Bio-inspired flexible fiber brushes that keep liquids in a controlled manner by closing their ends (NPG Asia Materials, 2016)](https://doi.org/10.1038/am.2016.1), Yamamoto et al., Nature Publishing Group - [Risk of Anthrax When Handling Animal Products](https://www.cdc.gov/anthrax/animal-products/index.html), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Fact-checked on 2026-10-19. --- The Last Codex · https://lastcodex.org/en/inventions/paintbrush/ · © The Last Codex. Texts, plates and figures: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.