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拍品專文
This depiction of a richly attired lady belongs to the distinguished corpus of female portraits by Willem Key, one of the leading portraitists active in mid-sixteenth-century Antwerp. Born in Breda around 1515-16, Key trained with Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Lambert Lombard before becoming a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1542. Celebrated by his contemporaries for both history painting and, above all, for his portraiture, Key served a sophisticated, often humanist clientele drawn from local patrician circles and the broader Habsburg administrative elite.
The present sitter, traditionally identified as the wife of Martinus del Rio, stands before a dark, unarticulated ground, her figure animated by the rich interplay of textures that Key renders with characteristic precision. Her velvet gown, edged in fur and broadened at the shoulders, is offset by exquisitely described blackwork sleeves, a crisp white ruff and partlet, and a cascade of jewels: a corsage of enameled gold ornaments at her neckline, a pendant cameo at her breast, a girdle of linked settings strung with small tufts of fur, a heavy pomander at her waist, and several elaborate rings.
The del Rio family was among the most prominent Spanish merchant dynasties established in Antwerp. They had risen to considerable prominence in the commercial and political life of the Habsburg Netherlands. In a 1919 catalogue of pictures in the Fogg Museum, the identity of the male pendant to the present picture (fig. 1) was corrected to Antonio del Rio (d. 1586), the father of Martinus, which would make the present portrait a depiction of Antonio's wife, Eleonora López de Villanova (d. 1602; Fogg Museum, loc. cit.). Martinus Antonius del Rio (1551-1608), would become a renowned Jesuit theologian and classical scholar, celebrated for his commentaries on Seneca and his influential treatise Disquisitionum Magicarum (1599). The family's connections to the highest echelons of Netherlandish society are further attested by their hosting of such figures as Cardinal Granvelle and Anne of Austria, Queen of Spain. A documented link between the del Rios and the Key workshop is provided by a pair of altarpiece shutters in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, depicting Antonio del Rio, his wife, and two sons—works now given to Willem's nephew Adriaen Thomasz. Key.
For much of the twentieth century, this portrait and its male pendant were cataloged as by Anthonis Mor. While in the collection of the socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig, Wilhelm R. Valentiner published the pair as 'two masterpieces' by Mor, likely dating to the painter's stay in Madrid (W.R. Valentiner, 1913, op. cit., pp. xiii and 12). Max J. Friedländer later published them, again as by Mor, describing the pair as 'portraits of a couple, supposedly Martinus del Rio and his wife', though he remarked that 'the man in particular is characteristic [of Mor]' (M. Friedländer, op. cit., p. 106). Georges Marlier had already sounded a cautious note in 1934, relegating the present work to a chapter of 'attributions douteuses' (G. Marlier, op. cit., p. 107, no. 85).
We are grateful to Koenraad Jonckheere for endorsing the attribution on the basis of digital photographs (written communication, 8 December 2025).
The present sitter, traditionally identified as the wife of Martinus del Rio, stands before a dark, unarticulated ground, her figure animated by the rich interplay of textures that Key renders with characteristic precision. Her velvet gown, edged in fur and broadened at the shoulders, is offset by exquisitely described blackwork sleeves, a crisp white ruff and partlet, and a cascade of jewels: a corsage of enameled gold ornaments at her neckline, a pendant cameo at her breast, a girdle of linked settings strung with small tufts of fur, a heavy pomander at her waist, and several elaborate rings.
The del Rio family was among the most prominent Spanish merchant dynasties established in Antwerp. They had risen to considerable prominence in the commercial and political life of the Habsburg Netherlands. In a 1919 catalogue of pictures in the Fogg Museum, the identity of the male pendant to the present picture (fig. 1) was corrected to Antonio del Rio (d. 1586), the father of Martinus, which would make the present portrait a depiction of Antonio's wife, Eleonora López de Villanova (d. 1602; Fogg Museum, loc. cit.). Martinus Antonius del Rio (1551-1608), would become a renowned Jesuit theologian and classical scholar, celebrated for his commentaries on Seneca and his influential treatise Disquisitionum Magicarum (1599). The family's connections to the highest echelons of Netherlandish society are further attested by their hosting of such figures as Cardinal Granvelle and Anne of Austria, Queen of Spain. A documented link between the del Rios and the Key workshop is provided by a pair of altarpiece shutters in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, depicting Antonio del Rio, his wife, and two sons—works now given to Willem's nephew Adriaen Thomasz. Key.
For much of the twentieth century, this portrait and its male pendant were cataloged as by Anthonis Mor. While in the collection of the socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig, Wilhelm R. Valentiner published the pair as 'two masterpieces' by Mor, likely dating to the painter's stay in Madrid (W.R. Valentiner, 1913, op. cit., pp. xiii and 12). Max J. Friedländer later published them, again as by Mor, describing the pair as 'portraits of a couple, supposedly Martinus del Rio and his wife', though he remarked that 'the man in particular is characteristic [of Mor]' (M. Friedländer, op. cit., p. 106). Georges Marlier had already sounded a cautious note in 1934, relegating the present work to a chapter of 'attributions douteuses' (G. Marlier, op. cit., p. 107, no. 85).
We are grateful to Koenraad Jonckheere for endorsing the attribution on the basis of digital photographs (written communication, 8 December 2025).