Short answers, pulled from the story.
In the mid-19th century, the word limner meant a secret society of artists who painted the invisible. David Laurent de Lara stood in a London studio and began to paint manuscripts that were not meant for the past but for the future. He created a new language of illumination that treated the page as a living canvas.
The last person to hold the title of His Majesty's Painter and Limner was Dame Elizabeth Blackadder. She served until her death on the 24th of September 2021. Her tenure was a testament to the enduring power of the limner's craft in the modern era.
In the early 19th century, a limner in the United States was a working painter who traveled from town to town with little formal training. These artists painted portraits for local landowners and merchants who wanted to display their status, property, and good taste. Charles Codman, a Maine landscape artist, practiced military, standard, fancy, ornamental, Masonic, and sign painting under the banner of the limner.
The Victoria Limners Society operated from 1971 through 2008. Members included Maxwell Bates, Pat Martin Bates, Richard Ciccimarra, Robert De Castro, Colin Graham, Helga Grove, Jan Grove, Elza Mayhew, Myfanwy Pavelic, Carole Sabiston, Herbert Siebner, Robin Skelton, and Karl Spreitz. The group worked within a variety of artistic styles and mediums including painting, sculpting, and pottery.
The Freake Limner and the Gansevoort Limner are two unattributed figures in American art history whose works can be found in the National Gallery of Art and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. These artists did not sign their work, leaving their identities to the shadows of history. Their paintings capture the essence of the colonial and early American periods.
The portrait by Erastus Salisbury Field at the Portland Art Museum is a powerful example of the limner's ability to capture the spirit of a nation. Field, a painter who began his career as a limner, went on to become one of the most respected artists of his time. His work was a bridge between the past and the present, preserving the history of a nation while looking forward to the future.