Willem de Keyser was a son of the prominent Amsterdam architect
Hendrick de Keyser. He was the brother of architect
Pieter de Keyser (1595–1676), sculptor
Hendrick de Keyser II (the Younger; 1613–1665), and painter
Thomas de Keyser (c. 1596–1667). Around 1623 he left Amsterdam to settle in London, where he found employment with his brother-in-law, the English architect
Nicholas Stone, who had married Willem's sister Maria. Stone had been charged with the construction of a number of buildings in classical style designed by
Inigo Jones for King
Charles I of England. During his stay in England, De Keyser married Walburga Parker. He remained in England until 1640, when the turbulent English political situation forced him to return to Amsterdam. On 13 August 1640 he was accepted as a master into the Amsterdam
masons' guild, and on 3 December 1647 the city government appointed him master mason of the city (
stadsmeestersteenhouwer). He assisted
Jacob van Campen in designing and building Amsterdam's grand new town hall (now the
Royal Palace) as well as the
spire of the adjacent
Nieuwe Kerk church. Van Campen nevertheless requested his services as a sculptor for the monumental tomb of
Maarten Tromp in
Delft's
Oude Kerk church and the tomb of
Jan van Galen in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. In 1658 he declared bankruptcy and left again for England. He was still living in England in 1674, but married in the Hague. He must have returned to Amsterdam not long thereafter, as he was working in 1678 on a monumental tomb for
Michiel de Ruyter in the Nieuwe Kerk, over which he brought a case to court in 1680. It is not known when and where he died. ==References==