Tempesta, Peter

, otherwise called Molyn, and Pietro Mulier, another artist of note, was born at Haerlem in 1637, and according to some authors, was the disciple of Snyders, whose manner he at first adopted, and painted huntings of different animals, as large as life, with singular force and success. He afterwards changed both his style and subjects, and delighted to paint tempests, storms at sea, and shipwrecks, which he executed admirably, and therefore got the name, by which he is generally known, of Tempesta. After travelling through Holland he went to Rome, and having changed his religion from protestantism to popery, became greatly caressed as an artist, and received the title of cavaliere. After passing some years at Rome he visited Genoa, where he was | likewise highly honoured, and fully employed, but appears to have lost all sense of principle or shame; for, in order to marry a Genoese lady, he caused his wife, whom he had left at Rome, to be murdered. This atrocious affair being discovered, he was sentenced to be hanged, but by the intervention of some of the nobility, who admired his talents, his sentence would probably have been changed to perpetual imprisonment. From this, however, he contrived to escape, after being confined sixteen years, and died in 1701, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. It was from this crime that he obtained the name of Pietro Mu­Lier, or de Mulieribus. His pictures are very rare, and held in great estimation, and those he painted in prison are thought to be of very superior merit. He executed also, by the graver only, several very neat prints, in a style greatly resembling that of Vander Velde. They consist chiefly of candle-light pieces, and dark subjects. ¹