New biographical data on Adriaen van de Venne (1590-1662) and his family

Abstract

In his biography of Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne in Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst (1661-1662) Cornelis de Bie devotes a few lines to the painter’s early years. Until recently, this was all the information we had regarding the origins, childhood and training of this versatile artist. Fresh biographical data for Adriaen van de Venne and his family, however, has recently become available from the digitized archival records of Delft, Leiden, Rotterdam and Zeeland indexed in the online Ecartico database, an initiative of the University of Amsterdam. Combining these archival discoveries enhances our understanding of the milieu in which Adriaen grew up and of his family network. He is highly likely to have been born in 1590 (rather than 1589 as hitherto assumed) and baptized in the church in ’t Woudt, near Delft. His parents were migrants from the Southern Netherlands: the stocking maker Pieter van de Venne from Lier and Jannetgen Beuvincx from Tournai. Adriaen’s father died before his birth and his mother remarried in Delft in 1594 to the Mechelen weaver Laurens Wittocx. This second marriage produced a son called Salomon Lourens, who became a ‘coarse painter’ and bricklayer in Rotterdam. Adriaen remained in contact with this half-brother for his whole life. Adriaen relied heavily at first on his older brother Jan, who probably arranged an apprenticeship for him with Simon de Valck, a goldsmith friend in Leiden. He later followed his brother to Middelburg, where they set up a successful printing, publishing and art dealing firm. Shortly before Jan’s death in 1625, Adriaen moved to The Hague, from where he kept in contact with his half-brother Salomon Lourens in Rotterdam. They acted as joint guardians of their nephew Pieter (one of Jan’s sons), who also lived in Rotterdam and worked there as a parchment maker. Archive documents from Rotterdam testify to the close links that persisted between the branches of the family in Rotterdam and The Hague. Adriaen possibly used his Rotterdam family connections to sell his paintings in this city.