Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne Delft 1589 - 1662 The Hague

This drawing is closely comparable in style, format and subject-matter with four others, sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 4 November 2003, lots 37 and 38, which were all designs for illustrations to Jacob Cats' Hovwelyck ("Matrimony"), one of the most celebrated of this author's humourous but moralising poems.  The writings of Cats provided Van de Venne with an immensely rich vein of source material for his illustrations, and the two men collaborated over a long period on many highly successful publications, the visual humour of Van de Venne complementing perfectly Cats' skill with words.  Hovwelyck was first published in 1625 and went through many subsequent editions.  Over a nine-year period, Van de Venne produced no fewer than three entirely different sets of illustrations for this publication, but the present composition does not appear amongst any of them.  Nor does it seem to have been engraved as one of the many illustrations that Van de Venne designed for other books, usually but not always the works of Cats, so even though the drawing is indented for transfer, it seems that the design was never in fact used.  

Recent years have seen an increased recognition of the extremely fine quality of Van de Venne's illustration designs, in which great wit and imagination combine with lively and skilful handling to produce works that offer a unique combination of beauty, humour and instruction.