A limner is an illuminator of manuscripts

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

, or more generally, a painter of ornamental decoration. One of the earliest mentions of a limner's work is found in the book Methods and Materials of Painting by Charles Lock Eastlake

Charles Lock Eastlake

Sir Charles Lock Eastlake RA was an English painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the early 19th century.-Early life:...

 (1793–1865).

Scotland

The office of Her Majesty's Painter and Limner

Painter and Limner

The Painter and Limner is a member of the Royal Household in Scotland. Appointments of Court Painters are recorded from 1581 onwards, and the post of Painter and Limner was created in 1702 for George Ogilvie. The duties included "drawing pictures of our [the Monarch's] person or of our successors...

 is a position within the Royal Household

Great Officer of State

In the United Kingdom, the Great Officers of State are traditional Crown ministers, who either inherit their positions or are appointed to exercise certain largely ceremonial functions. Separate Great Officers exist for England and Scotland, and formerly for Ireland...

 unique to Scotland. The position of portrait painter to the royal household is honorary and for life.

United States

Limner is also the term used to describe unattributed portraits commissioned by colonial America's rising mercantile class as status symbols. The local landowners and merchants who commissioned these portraits posed in their finest clothes, in well-appointed interiors or in landscapes that identified their position, property, good taste, and sophistication.

A late named artist who began in this genre is the Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 landscape artist Charles Codman

Charles Codman

Charles Codman was a landscape painter of Portland, Maine. His art is featured at the Portland Museum of Art as mature, fine early American landscape painting....

, who in Eastern Argus (April 1, 1831) is described as an "ornamental and sign painter" or "limner" who practiced "Military, Standard, Fancy, Ornamental, Masonic and Sign Painting".

External links

• Works of the Gansevoort Limner at the National Gallery of Art
  National Gallery of Art
  The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
  
  
• Works of the Freake Limner at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
  Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
  The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco and one of the largest art museums in California.-External...
  
  
• portrait by Erastus Salisbury Field at the Portland Art Museum
  Portland Art Museum
  The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it the oldest art museum on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the United States. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum became one of the twenty-five largest art museums in...