Artworks
This manuscript with stunning 17 full-page miniatures, is a rare and fascinating case of a 15th century manuscript that has been signed by the illuminator. His name, Antonis Rogiersz. Uten Broec, appears in some registers of the city of Utrecht, where he was born and buried. However, the majority of his works betray a collaboration with illuminators from the South Netherlands or Flanders. This leads to the assumption that Antonis left his native city in order to seek his professional luck elsewhere, before returning to Utrecht later in life. This Book of Hours is an important testimony for a well-documented itinerant artist, who moved from the North to the South of his country, where he was involved in many prestigious projects.
Signed manuscripts in general are of great rarity and when we find examples of this practice it is usually the scribes – and not the illuminators – who signed their work. Here, we can present the unusual case of an illuminator, who not only indicates his and his father’s name, but even asks the reader to pray for his soul by saying three Hail Mary’s. This discovery is of particular importance for the study of medieval manuscript production.
All miniatures are of high artistic quality and executed in a unique, recogniseable style. Utenbroec’s figures are lively modelled with chiselled features. The subjects of the cycle illustrating the Office of the Virgin are deviating from the usual canon of images, which speaks for an independent and original artist. The fact that Antonis signed two of his manuscripts also provides a clue to his self-esteem and the pride he took in his own work. The style of our miniatures coincides with the characteristics of an illuminator who has hitherto gone by the sobriquet of Master of the Boston City of God. Apart from the present manuscript, he left his name in a Judith and Holofernes miniature of a multi-volume Bible. Since the illumination style of the present manuscript and the Malmesbury Bible are consistent, one can ascribe a rather extensive corpus of nearly twenty other manuscripts to Antonis Uten Broec, which offers the opportunity to study his style in its various nuances.