Biography

German (Ottonian) illuminator, also known as the Gregory Master. He is named after two detached leaves of a manuscript of the Registrum Gregorii (Ms. 171, Stadtbibliothek, Trier and Ms. 14bis, Musée Condé, Chantilly) given by Egbert, Archbishop of Trier, to Trier Cathedral. Work in a group of late 10th-century codices, most of them produced for churches in Trier between 980 and 996, is also attributed to this artist. A Sacramentary made for Lorsch Abbey, perhaps c. 980 (Ms. 1447, Musée Condé, Chantilly), may be among his earliest works, while his last known work is a Gospel Book in Manchester (Ms. 98, John Rylands University Library). Its miniatures are now missing but are attributed to the Gregory Master on the grounds of the full-page incipits to the Gospels, characteristically laid out with medallions of emperors in square frames in the borders. Since Otto III is portrayed as an emperor, the manuscript cannot have been produced before 996, the date of his imperial coronation.

This artist broke the bounds of the whole of mediaeval painting. He was a highly-gifted book painter and maybe also an ivory carver. According to one hypothesis he is the head of the Trier scriptorium and the goldsmithing workshop of Archbishop Egbert.