Willem Key

Willem Key was born in Breda around 1516 and learned his trade in Antwerp, where by 1529 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Later, together with Frans Floris, he went to Liège to study with Lambert Lombard, a painter steeped in the art of Italy. In 1540 Key joined the painters' guild of Antwerp, and he grew rich there, in a large house near the exchange.

Portraits made his name, and people of his time praised his learned hand. One of his sitters was the Duke of Alba, sent by Philip II of Spain to crush the unrest in the Netherlands. A story grew up that while Key painted him, he pretended not to understand the languages spoken around him and so overheard the duke's plans against the Counts of Egmont and Horne. The two counts were beheaded in Brussels on 5 June 1568, and Key died in Antwerp that same day. Whether shock killed him, as the story claims, no one can say.