limners
American Art 11-24-02 The hardships of seventeenth century colonial life left little time or energy for painting pictures. Artists known as limners did many portraits painted in America during the seventeenth century. These anonymous painters had no formal training and are typically identified by the subjects they painted. The word limner ?is a form of the French word lumier, used in the Middle Ages for an illuminator of manuscripts. From the 16th century onwards it usually meant a painter of miniature portraits, though it was also used for painters generally as in seventeenth century America.?