# "What Won't People Do for Money!" [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [VENNE, Adriaen Pietersz. van de]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on oak, 34 x 53 cm ## Commentary "What Won't People Do for Money!" 1625 Oil on oak, 34 x 53 cm Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest Van de Venne's style was related to Pieter Brughel the Elder. He made grisailles of the destitute and maimed which have a moralizing character. However, paintings of the high life of elegant young men and their fashionable women companions - the so-called "merry company" pictures - were much more popular than those showing the predicament of the poor. The scene, which is no longer easy to define, ridicules greed for money, a favourite theme of this artist and one which he used in a number of paintings. The saying is simply portrayed, with no attempt to point the moral beyond what is implicit in the scene itself, which is depicted with all the jovial familiarity characteristic of the genre. ## Related artworks - [A Cavalier at His Dressing Table]() - [Al-Arm]() - [Alle Baeten Helpen \("Every Gift Helps"\)]() - [Allegory of the Twelve Years' Truce]() - [An Amorous Peasant Couple Conversing]() - [Armoe' Soeckt List \("Poverty Leads to Cunning"\)]() - [Dance of Death]() - [Emblem]() - [Emblem]() - [Fishing for Souls]() - [Fools Have the Most Fun]() - [Fray en Leelijck \(Beautiful and Ugly\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()