Adrianus van der Koogh was born in Middelharnis. When he was 16 years old he was sent to Dordrecht to take lessons with his great-nephew Pieter Hofman. He then moved on to the studio of Jacob van Strij, who introduced him to the work of 17th-century landscape painters, especially Albert Cuyp. Influenced by this example, Van der Koogh painted early romantic tree-filled landscapes before 1820, while his series of lithographs with tree studies influenced the next generation of landscape painters.