Through the Middle Ages up to the eve of the industrial revolution, the materials and tools used for dyeing were quite basic: the vat, the reel, the furnace, and the stirring stick, supplemented by sieves, buckets, blocks and other accessories of the dyer's trade.
Below is a collection of images of dyers and dyeing through history, from the fourteenth century through 1800. Like all artistic depictions, they must be taken with a grain of salt; several are allegorical, and very few of the earlier images are designed to represent the dyer's trade completely accurately. Nevertheless, they give a great deal of insight into the tools and technology of the dyer as it evolved over the last millenium.
14th c. dyers