limner

Limner is a historical term for a painter, especially a portrait painter, or for someone who limns, that is, depicts in painting or drawing. The noun derives from the verb limn and has appeared in English since the medieval period. In Britain and in colonial America, limners were often itinerant artists who offered small-scale portraits, sometimes as miniatures on vellum or panel. Works attributed to limners are frequently unsigned, with attributions made by style and documented commissions rather than by named authors.

In addition to portraiture, the term has been used for decorative painters of manuscripts and other painted surfaces, though manuscript illumination is more commonly described with specialized terminology. Limners tended to work within local workshops or itinerant networks, producing accessible images for households, taverns, and communities where formal portraiture by established masters was less common.

Today the word limner is largely archaic and encountered mainly in historical art-historical writing. When used, it designates a painter of modest or vernacular training operating outside prominent studio systems, or an unidentified artist whose body of work shares a recognizable style. The term helps scholars discuss early modern and colonial art practices, markets, and the diffusion of portrait imagery beyond major urban centers.