IMAGE DETAILS

COLNAGHI

Willem Adriaensz Key (Breda 1515/16-1568 Antwerp)
The Crucifixion, circa 1550
Oil on panel
102 x 74 cm
Signed on the cross: W. KAY
Provenance: private collection, Belgium, until 2023; acquired from the above
Literature: Koenraad Jonckheere, Willem Key (1516-1568): Portrait of a Humanist Painter, Turnhout, 2011

This signed panel is a recently rediscovered work by Willem Key. Key is most known for his portrait paintings, which account for roughly two-thirds of his known output. However, he was also a gifted painter of historical and religious subjects - 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.

Willem Key was a prominent sixteenth-century painter from Antwerp, then one of the greatest commercial and artistic centres of Europe. Recognised for his exceptional talents, Key enjoyed high social and artistic status, earning the admiration of both local nobility and international figures, including Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, and Antoine Perrenot, Cardinal Granvelle.