"Limning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... miniature is a small portrait, and we even use the word as an adjective meaning small, on a reduced scale. But the true sense of miniature is something painted in minium, red lead. Florio explains miniatura as "a limning (see p. 63), a painting with vermilion." Such paintings were usually small, hence the later meaning. The word was first applied to the ornamental red initial capitals in manuscripts. Vignette still means technically in French an interlaced vine-pattern ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... parlour before a portrait by Wright of the Minister to whom all courts bowed. 'That is my father, Sir Robert, in profile,' and a vulgar face in profile is always seen at its vulgarest; and the nex-retrousse, the coarse mouth, the double chin, are most forcibly exhibited in this limning by Wright; who did not, like Reynolds, or like Lawrence, cast a nuance of gentility over every subject of his pencil. Horace—can we not hear him in imagination?—is telling his friends how Sir Robert used to celebrate the day on which he sent in his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... us to your praise With many strong indentures By limning Mr. Briggs, his ways And countless misadventures. For these and many a hundred more, Far as our voice can reach, Sir, We send it out from shore to shore, And bless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various |
