Hendrick de Keyser (I)

It was through this role that he became the most prominent and multifaceted figure in the Netherlands in his two fields. As an architect De Keyser designed city buildings, churches and private houses, while as a sculptor he made statuettes in wood and bronze, as well as portrait busts and tombs/funerary monuments in terracotta, alabaster and marble. He even claimed to have personally introduced Italian marble to the Netherlands. His good reputation also earned him prestigious commissions: he made the funerary monument for ‘pater patriae’ William of Orange in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft (1614-1621) and the bronze statue of Erasmus in Rotterdam (1618-1621).