Lot 34: * WILLEM ADRIAENSZ. KEY BREDA CIRCA 1515/6 - 1568 (?) ANTWERP

37 by 50 3/4 in.; 94 by 128.9 cm.

oil on oak panel

Du, Europäische Kunstzeitschrift, May 1977, p. 32, reproduced pp. 26, 34 (as School of Fontainebleau).

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

With Wildenstein Gallery, London, 1989 (as School of Fontainebleau);
From whom purchased by the present collector.

Another version of the present painting, with some differences, ascribed to Willem Key, is in the collection of the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick (Nr. 42).

Willem Key was born into a family of artists in Breda and emigrated to Antwerp where he became a highly esteemed portrait and history painter. According to Karel van Mander (Schilder-boeck, 1604, ii, fol. 420), Key studied in Liège with Lambert Lombard, along with fellow painter Frans Floris. He may also have had some early traning in the Antwerp workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst who had a pupil in 1529-30 listed under the name "Willem of Breda."

The figure types, color and draughtsmanship in the present work are found in several other paintings by Key, most notably in the Mars and Venus Trapped by Vulcan in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick. The figure of Venus is strikingly similar in both paintings, particularly the treatment of their heads and hair. The figure and face of Cupid is very close to that of the Christ Child in a Holy Family by Key in the Gemäldegalerie, Pommersfelden. That painting also shows a similar rendering and attention to detail of the bed drapery and pillow.

The burning city depicted in the background is most likely Troy. Love and its consequences were intertwined in the tragic fate of that city. This subject was treated by other Northern painters, notably Jacob de Backer (Antwerp circa 1555-circa 1585) who painted two versions of Venus and Cupid with a vignette of Troy burning in the background (Musée National de la Renaissance, Château d'Ecouen and Staatliche Museen, Berlin-Ost).