Pieter de Molijn (London 1595-1661 Haarlem)

Pieter Molijn played a crucial role in the development of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting, innovating naturalistic landscapes which pioneered the ‘tonal’ landscape alongside Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael. Unlike the work of his predecessors, typified by their dramatic, fantastical compositions and use of bright areas of colour, Molijn’s work captured his indigenous landscapes from around Haarlem, using a harmonious, restricted palette of browns, tans, and greys.