The Enigmatic Brush of John Tolman: Rediscovering the Burpee-Conant Limner For decades, art historians and collectors have been captivated by a small but remarkably consistent body of work attributed to an artist known only as the “Burpee-Conant Limner.” This moniker, born from the surnames featured in four early 19th-century portraits—Relief and Sophia Burpee, who married brothers Jacob and Samuel Conant—masked the true identity of a skilled painter whose life remained shrouded in mystery. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to lift the veil, revealing the artist as John Tolman, an itine…