Willem Key was one of the leading portrait and history painters in
sixteenth-century Antwerp. He was born in Breda in 1516. Following in
his older brother Wouter's footsteps, Willem went to Antwerp to become a
painter. He studied under Pieter Coecke (1529) and later, like Frans
Floris, apprenticed in the workshop of Lambert Lombard in Liege before
becoming a free master in 1542. In 1568, just when he had reached the
top of his abilities and enjoyed the patronage of outstanding
individuals and institutions, Willem Key died suddenly. The artist's
biographer and painter Karel van Mander tells us that Key was blessed
with 'Sulcke edele gheesten, ' such a noble mind. And, he had a 'Docta
manus, ' a learned hand, as the Bruges humanist and painter Domenicus
Lampsonius phrased this topos in 1572. This is the first monograph to
place Willem Key and his oeuvre in a historical framework. It
demonstrates why the nobility, including the Duke of Alba and Cardinal
Granvelle, considered him the best portrait painter of his day and why
leading humanists viewed his many history paintings as eloquent
visualizations of contemporary art theory. The reason why Willem Key's
peers regarded him as such an exceptional painter lay in his creative
ability to do battle on an uneven playing field with the artists who had
been to Italy. In his reconciliation of the Netherlandish tradition with
the rapidly advancing Italian manner, Key grasped the spirit of the
Renaissance as formulated by Alberti. The quintessence of Key's art
inspired numerous artists in his own time and later, including the
grandmaster of the Baroque, Pieter Paul Rubens. By shedding light on
this amazing confrere of Pieter Bruegel, Pieter Aertsen, Anthonis Mor
and Frans Floris and placing him in the highly complex and fascinating
time he lived in, this monograph and catalogue raisonne of the art of
Willem Key restores the artist to his rightful place in
sixteenth-century Antwerp art. The book also contains an appendix of the
many new works by Adriaen Thomasz. Key that have been discovered since
the publication of the catalogue of Adriaen's oeuvre in this same series
in 200
