SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Willem Key was a portraitist and painter of religious subjects active in sixteenth-century Antwerp. Trained under Pieter Coecke and Lambert Lombard, he brought these two fields together in commissions that placed donors within a sacred narrative. His portrait of an unknown gentleman aged forty-one, painted around 1560 on an oval wooden panel, belongs to the Sackville Collection presented at Knole.
His Lamentation of Christ with Donors, dated 1553, unfolds across a panel measuring 171.5 by 131.5 centimetres. Inscriptions record the ages of the two patrons. Acquired in 2025 by the Charles Vreeken Fund in partnership with the King Baudouin Foundation, the painting is on deposit at M Leuven. It brings individual portraits together with a religious composition on a monumental scale.
This profile brings together identity references for Willem Key and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Schuler · Piguet · Lempertz
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
Oil on wood
und Werkstatt Die Beweinung Christi
Öl auf Holz
Catalogue period : 2020-03-27
Published result : 60000 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 20000–30000
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Oil on wood
Bildnis einers Herren mit schwarzem Barett
Öl auf Holz
Auction date : 2016-05-21
Published result : 13640 EUR
Including buyer’s premium
Estimate : 9000
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Oil on panel
Portrait d'homme
huile sur panneau
Catalogue period : 2012-06-13
Published result : 33000 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 2000–3000
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
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