Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (1589 – 12 November 1662), was a versatile Dutch Golden Age painter of allegories, genre subjects, and portraits, as well as a miniaturist, book illustrator, designer of political satires, and versifier.

His political painting Fishing for Souls, 1614, is an ironic commentary on the Catholic and Protestant troubles of the Eighty Years War that split the border between the Northern from the Southern Netherlands along the Schelde river, very close to his home in Middleburg.

[3] From 1620 until his death van de Venne made many grisailles and engravings of genre subjects, featuring peasants, beggars, thieves and fools as illustrations of current proverbs and sayings, mostly by Jacob Cats.

Van de Venne moved to The Hague and joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1625, taking the position of dean in 1637.

He was a founding member of Confrerie Pictura, a group bent on improving the independent status and social position of the artist in Dutch society by encouraging a more academic approach to the arts.