- One of the constellations representing technical and artistic apparatus introduced into the southern sky by the Frenchman Nicolas Louis de Lacaille after his observing expedition to the Cape of Good Hope in 1751–52. It lies under the keel of the now-dismembered Greek constellation Argo Navis, the ship of the Argonauts, next to the bright star Canopus. In fact the four brightest stars in Pictor, labelled α, β, γ, and δ by Lacaille, had been catalogued by the Dutch explorer Frederick de Houtman as part of Argo a century and half earlier.
