Dunes

1626 · Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig

landscape

Pieter Molyn was born of Flemish parents in London. Neither the date of his emigration to Holland nor the name of his teacher are known. There is no documentary evidence for the assertion found in the early literature that he studied with Frans Hals, however, he did provide landscapes for a few of Hals's portraits.

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About the Artist

Pieter de Molyn

1595 – 1661

Dutch landscape painter, active mainly in Haarlem. With Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael, also active in Haarlem, he ranks as one of the pioneers of naturalistic landscape painting in Holland. It is not known if these three painters worked together, if they arrived at similar solutions independently, or if one of them began experiments with monochromatic pictures of dunes and cottages and the others followed his lead. Molyn's later career was less distinguished, and he seems then to have worked more as a draughtsman then a painter. He also etched.

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