Art history has not given Adriaen Thomasz. Key’s legacy
its proper due, to say the least. After a short and successful
artistic career in a turbulent period, Adriaen Thomasz. Key
vanished from the stage for centuries. Barring his art, he left few
other traces behind and over time even this came to be riddled with
the most far-fetched attributions. In the past, connoisseurs were
often at a complete loss. Adriaen Thomasz.’s pictures were
ascribed to a host of painters from numerous countries and periods.
The names of Frans Pourbus the Elder and Willem Key, for instance,
were linked to several of Adriaen Thomasz.’s panels. Other
works had to endure attributions which had nothing in common with
the quality, let alone the art, of the master. Dozens of inferior
portraits were given to Adriaen Thomasz. and many of his
altarpieces and devotional scenes were not recognised as such
because he was considered solely as a portraitist. Consequently, up
until now the image of Adriaen Thomasz.’s art has been
clouded and inconsistent.
Adriaen Thomasz. Key richly deserved his reputation as a
portraitist. Some ninety percent of his preserved oeuvre consists
of likenesses of the Antwerp and the Dutch elite. Adriaen
Thomasz.’s skills as a portraitist were and are generally
acknowledged. With a finesse and sobriety recalling that of Flemish
Primitives such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, he recorded his
sitters with ruthless objectivity. The same sobriety and
objectivity are to be found in his altarpieces and devotional
paintings, a less known facet of his art. Often incorrectly
ascribed as a lack of ingenuity or understanding of the Italian
Renaissance and typified as archaising, Key’s history and
devotional paintings prove to be of a huge intellectual
resourcefulness and artistic talent. His art was a conscious,
reformatory and humanistic intellectual discourse with his famous
predecessors and contemporaries. The striving for photographic
realism and sobriety in the oeuvre of the painter is tackled
in this monograph, bearing in mind Adriaen Thomasz.’s
humanistic concerns with iconography.
This richly illustrated monograph brings to light, for the first
time, the oeuvre of a painter, called the most talented of his
generation by David Freedberg. It consists of portraits and
altarpieces, devotional paintings and chiaroscuro prints. The
rediscovery of Adriaen Thomasz. Key’s art will be a eye
opener to all scholars interested in the Netherlandish Renaissance
and will hopefully induce new research into Adriaen Thomasz. Key
and his contemporaries.