Portretten van Willem Key
1764
Medium
etching
Dimensions
100; 153
About this artwork
ets
Art Historical Context
This delicate etching, created in 1764 by the Dutch printmaker Jan l’Admiral, reproduces portraits of the Flemish Renaissance painter Willem Key (1515–1568). Measuring just 153 by 100 millimetres, the small format was typical of 18th-century reproductive prints intended for collectors’ albums and art-historical study. L’Admiral, active in Amsterdam, specialised in translating paintings into etchings, allowing wider audiences to study the likenesses of earlier masters long before photography. Willem Key was celebrated in his own time for refined, psychologically acute portraits that blended It...
About the Artist
Jan l'Admiral · 1699–1773
Jan l'Admiral (1699–1773) was a pioneering Dutch engraver whose mastery of color mezzotint technique and collaboration with leading anatomists made him a crucial figure in both artistic printmaking and scientific illustration. Born in Amsterdam in 1699 to an engraver father of the same name, l'Admiral belonged to a family of printmakers and received training that would position him at the forefron...