Stretcher bar

Interior angle of a completed stretcher bar corner showing the slot designed to fit a Corner key.
A fully assembled stretcher bar corner. Two unassembled stretcher bars displaying corner mitre construction.

A stretcher bar is used to construct a wooden stretcher used by artists to mount their canvases.

They are traditionally a wooden framework support[1] on which an artist fastens a piece of canvas. They are also used for small-scale embroidery to provide steady tension, affixing the edges of the fabric with push-pins or a staple gun before beginning to sew, and then removing it from the stretcher when the work is complete. Stretchers are usually in the shape of a rectangle, although shaped canvases are also possible.

  1. ^ "Which Wood Stretcher Bars Are the Best Fit?". ARTnews.com. 2022-04-03. Retrieved 2022-05-03.