around 1515 -1568 · Breda, Liège and Antwerp Renaissance

Attentive faces, measured gestures and serious architecture make Willem Key a master of Flemish religious portraiture and painting.

Willem Key was born in Breda around 1515 or 1516 and died in Antwerp in 1568. He belonged to the generation which adapted the ambitions of the Italian Renaissance to the precise traditions of the ancient Netherlands. Still young, he trained with Pieter Coecke van Aelst in Antwerp, then joined Lambert Lombard's workshop in Liège, where he rubbed shoulders with Frans Floris. This double experience brought him both a Flemish taste for detail, a monumental construction of the figure and an increased knowledge of Antiquity. Received a Freemaster at the guild of Saint-Luc in Antwerp in 1542, Key became a sought-after painter and directed a prosperous workshop. He excelled in portraiture: his models, often members of the elite urban, stand out against sober backgrounds, with restrained dignity and precise observation of features, hands and fabrics. He also paints altarpieces and vast religious compositions. Many disappear during the iconoclastic destruction of the 16th century, which today makes his work more difficult to measure. Saint Jerome writing reveals this second vein. The humanist saint is not shown in emphasis, but focused on the act of writing; the writing saint, the skull and the light structure a meditation on study, time and faith; the book, the skull and the light structure a meditation on study, time and faith; the book, the skull and the light structure a meditation on study, time and faith; the book, the skull and the light structure a meditation on the act of writing; the book, the skull and the light structure a meditation on study, time and faith. Key knows how to make a spiritual idea credible through the weight of objects and the calm presence of the body. His language combines clarity drawing, flexible modeling and psychological gravity. Highly esteemed during his lifetime, he trained or influenced several artists, including Adriaen Thomasz. Key. His painting occupies a pivotal place between Nordic portraiture, Antwerp mannerism and a religious humanism of remarkable sobriety. The "Willem Key" selection notably compares Saint Jerome writing. His reading favors movement.

Key gives the Flemish Renaissance a concentrated face: the precision of reality always serves the moral dignity of the figure.