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Lot Essay
Described by Max Friedländer as a ‘harmonizer and mediator in an age marked by a lack of discipline’, Willem Key established his artistic reputation both as an eccentric cultivator of local style and a great innovator, reconciling two different yet concurrent artistic traditions in 16th-century Flanders: the Netherlandish and the Italian. After leaving his native town of Breda for Antwerp at the age of 14, Willem began an apprenticeship in 1529 in the studio of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), then one of the most productive in Antwerp, where he worked with elite patrons and was able to visit imperial collections with outstanding examples from classical antiquity as well as more modern Italian masters. He subsequently travelled to Liège, where from c. 1538-1539 he was a member of the workshop of Lambert Lombard (c. 1505-1566), an erudite artist who helped Key understand and employ the theoretical principles of Renaissance art. These experiences formed the basis of Key’s unique artistic disposition and, upon his return to Antwerp in 1542, helped him become one of the leading artists in the city.
Though he is usually revered as a master portraitist – considered the best of his day by noble patrons like the Duke of Alba and Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle – this picture is a testament to Key’s powerful religious achievements, several of which were destroyed during the Iconoclastic Fury, or Beeldenstorm, that swept the Low Countries and famously struck Antwerp in 1566. It also exemplifies Key’s dual artistic influences. The work is distinctly Flemish in its restrained palette, smooth and enamelled modelling – which Friedlander describes as ‘licked clean’ (Early Netherlandish Painting: Antonis Mor and his Contemporaries, New York, 1975, XIII, p. 52) – and representation of physiognomy, as in Christ’s soulfully upturned eyes. Its most direct model, however, is a celebrated Italian sculpture, Michelangelo’s Cristo della Minerva (fig. 1; Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome). The sculpture would have been well-known to Key in prints by artists like Nicolás Beatrizet that proliferated throughout the Netherlands during this period. As Friedländer notes, nudity ‘did not come naturally to the North’ (op. cit., p. 10), so quoting the ancient sculpture boasted Key’s awareness of Italian Renaissance art and classical models and also created a dialogue with local humanists, presaging the rise of the Netherlandish Baroque style and its greatest exponent, Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
Though once attributed to Michiel Coxcie, the present picture was recognized as an autograph work by Willem Key by Koenraad Jonckheere (loc. cit.), who notes the ‘rounded musculature, the flesh tones and the face of Christ art typical of Key’ and describes the brushwork as ‘identical’ to known works by the artist such as his Ecce Homo and Mater Dolorosa (ibid., nos. A85-A87). Jonckheere proposes that the present work is an autograph variant of Key’s own now-lost Christ the Redeemer made for the Antwerp town hall (ibid., no. C1). Key is known to have painted repetitions of his major works, so the existence of this second version is in keeping with his practices. The composition was further copied – with some variations – by Key’s pupil and distant relative, Adriaen Thomasz. Key (Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse, inv. no. 2824), who was active in the elder Key’s workshop by 1564.
Though he is usually revered as a master portraitist – considered the best of his day by noble patrons like the Duke of Alba and Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle – this picture is a testament to Key’s powerful religious achievements, several of which were destroyed during the Iconoclastic Fury, or Beeldenstorm, that swept the Low Countries and famously struck Antwerp in 1566. It also exemplifies Key’s dual artistic influences. The work is distinctly Flemish in its restrained palette, smooth and enamelled modelling – which Friedlander describes as ‘licked clean’ (Early Netherlandish Painting: Antonis Mor and his Contemporaries, New York, 1975, XIII, p. 52) – and representation of physiognomy, as in Christ’s soulfully upturned eyes. Its most direct model, however, is a celebrated Italian sculpture, Michelangelo’s Cristo della Minerva (fig. 1; Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome). The sculpture would have been well-known to Key in prints by artists like Nicolás Beatrizet that proliferated throughout the Netherlands during this period. As Friedländer notes, nudity ‘did not come naturally to the North’ (op. cit., p. 10), so quoting the ancient sculpture boasted Key’s awareness of Italian Renaissance art and classical models and also created a dialogue with local humanists, presaging the rise of the Netherlandish Baroque style and its greatest exponent, Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
Though once attributed to Michiel Coxcie, the present picture was recognized as an autograph work by Willem Key by Koenraad Jonckheere (loc. cit.), who notes the ‘rounded musculature, the flesh tones and the face of Christ art typical of Key’ and describes the brushwork as ‘identical’ to known works by the artist such as his Ecce Homo and Mater Dolorosa (ibid., nos. A85-A87). Jonckheere proposes that the present work is an autograph variant of Key’s own now-lost Christ the Redeemer made for the Antwerp town hall (ibid., no. C1). Key is known to have painted repetitions of his major works, so the existence of this second version is in keeping with his practices. The composition was further copied – with some variations – by Key’s pupil and distant relative, Adriaen Thomasz. Key (Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse, inv. no. 2824), who was active in the elder Key’s workshop by 1564.