This essay collects together current known data on Jan Dirven - an Antwerp painter who, orphaned at a young age, died in 1653 aged 28 - placing him in his historical context and providing a catalogue raisonné of his rare works known to date. The artist specialised in still-life paintings, following in the footsteps of his elder Alexander Adriaenssen, primarily depicting strikingly realistic fish. Jan Dirven consistently featured them together with a particular plant, which he seems to have used almost like a signature: the frogbit (hydrocharis morsus-ranae). Also known in Flanders as Geld op 't water - “money on the water” - it is a popular symbol of worthless money.

This article focuses in particular on a recently-discovered painting that sees the artist using various symbols and proverbs to describe part of the socio-political situation in his city, Antwerp. Through a simple illustration of fish coveted by a cat, Jan Dirven illustrated a proverb that was very much in vogue at the time that refers to profiteers as cats that seize fish without having caught them. Here it seems that he was denouncing the misdeeds of the Wars of Religion, the cat likely also representing the Catholic bourgeoisie, the clergy or the Spaniards considered as occupiers, who took advantage of the labour of the people of Antwerp, while the Scheldt blockade had just been extended in 1648.