Limner

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Limner is a term applied to the art of untrained and unnamed painters of the American Colonies, or to the artists themselves. Typically the art is ornamental decoration for signs, clock faces, fire buckets, fire screens, etc. The term is derived from illuminator.

A later, named artist who began in this genre is the Maine landscape artist Charles Codman, 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".[1] See also the works of the Gansevoort Limner at the National Gallery of Art [2] and of the Freake Limner at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco [3].