I admit that I feel a block from the extra info you gave about the key...It's interesting that I have to try ignoring what I know in order to procceed, though
I kept seeing the whole photo in my mind, but I realized I remembered it wrong... I remembered it as a room with a square fireplace with a warm carpet at the front and wooden cupboards at the left, the key being above the fireplace and right of the cupboards-maybe just my memory messing up, but who knows...
By second try I saw a painting with mountains, sun and sea, simple wooden frame...and except this and the key everything else was black around, maybe because of plain absense of further details.
I'm very tired, so I'll stick at these for the moment.
Name-I'll take a random guess: is it Kora-something?
Direction: North? (although that doesn't make sense, most symbols are about east or west, I think)