Sketch of the Heeswijkerpoort/ recto: View of the Heeswijkerpoort, Montfoort

Pieter Mulier II, called Cavalier Tempesta (Haarlem 1637 - 1701 Milan)

He was born in Haarlem in 1637 to the marine painter Pieter Mulier I (c. 1590/1615-1659) and his wife, Maeycken de Graat (?-?). His parents had married in Haarlem on 25 February 1635. They were Baptists, his father of Flemish origin. Pieter II, who is mentioned in the records of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke (without a date), was probably taught by his father. Since his earliest works, solely drawings, betray the influence of Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661) and Nicolaes Berchem (1621/22-1683), he may also have been a pupil of one of these artists. Before he set out for the South, Mulier travelled through Holland, working and selling paintings, as was reported in 1730 by his biographer Lione Pascoli (1674-1744), who probably got his information from Mulier’s descendants. In 1655, Mulier went to Antwerp and probably from there to Brussels, as is documented by three panoramic drawings, two of which are now untraced and one of which is in the Musée de la Ville, Brussels (inv. no. unknown).⁵ In Antwerp, the young artist met a Carmelite monk who converted him to Catholicism, gave him letters of recommendation for Rome and might have accompanied him on his journey there. Travelling via Bronnbach near Würzburg, a trip documented by a drawing in the Grafschaftsmuseum, Wertheim (inv. no. L 50/1987, on long-term loan from Baden-Württemberg),⁶ Mulier probably continued to Augsburg, opting to cross into Italy via the Brenner Pass. By 1656, he must have arrived in Rome. Soon after his arrival, he married Lucia Rossi (1635-1675). Residing first in the parish of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, later in the Corso near S. Maria del Popolo, Mulier headed a large household, including his wife and children, his sister Anna Maria Mulier (c. 1635/40-1689), his mother-in-law Maria Gorini (c. 1607-?) and his sister-in-law Elisabetta Rossi (1644-?).

Probably through the intervention of the Carmelite, Mulier met important patrons in Rome, including Ferdinando Orsini, 4th Duke of Bracciano (1656-1660), his son and successor, Flavio Orsini (1660-1698), Cardinal Giberto Borromeo (1615-1673) and Don Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637-1689). Mulier’s frescoes in the Palazzo Colonna in the Piazza SS Apostoli, made shortly before 1668, are among the highlights of his career.⁷ Three of his eight frescoes depict tempests at sea. With such subjects, he not only followed his father’s example, but also found a niche in the market and, not surprisingly, acquired the bent-name Tempeest (‘Tempest’) as a member of the Bentvueghels (society of Northern artists in Rome). In Italy he was known by the Italianized version of this nickname, Cavalier Tempesta. He also signed with that form of name, the earliest known example being a drawing (1659) in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 13741).⁸ Apart from the frescoes in the Palazzo Colonna, the only other works preserved from his Roman years are imaginary drawn views, which retain something of a Dutch character: these are preserved in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. 8740 S), the Courtauld Gallery, London (signed and dated 1657; inv. no. D.1952.RW.4084), and the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (signed and dated 1657; inv. no. 4060/2662).⁹

Another nickname by which he was known was Petrus de Mulieribus (‘Pieter of the women’), probably alluding to his unconventional lifestyle. His abandonment of his family and his departure from Rome for Genoa in 1668 may have been provoked by jealousy over the behaviour of his wife, Lucia, who was said to have been a prostitute. In 1675 she was killed, and the following year Mulier was imprisoned under suspicion of murder, since he was already living together with a new mistress, the Turinese gentlewoman Anna Eleonora Beltrami (?-?), who had been abandoned by her husband. In 1679 Mulier was sentenced to twenty years in prison. The same year, he married Anna Eleonora (whose brother had already married Mulier’s sister Anna Maria in 1675). Mulier continued to paint while in prison. After eight years, he was pronounced innocent, and on 15 October 1684 he was freed owing to the intervention of his prominent protectors, the Spanish governor of Milan, Don Giovanni de Cabrera, Conte de Melgar (1597-1647), and Conte Vitaliano Borromeo (1620-1690). For the remaining years, he lived in Milan in grand style, even maintaining a zoo from which he made life studies of animals. He travelled throughout Lombardy and the Veneto, becoming the leading landscape and marine painter in North Italy. His work reflects the influence of both Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). Despite his success as an artist, Mulier was incapable of managing his money and spent his last years in misery. His last dated work is the painted Landscape with the Journey of Rebecca of 1701, preserved in a private collection, Milan,¹⁰ He died on 29 June of the same year and was buried in the small church of S. Calimero, Milan.

Unlike his fellow Dutch Italianate artists, Mulier completely assimilated to Italian life and culture, enjoying a large circle of local friends, patrons and benefactors. His most important output dates from his late years in Genoa, Venice and Lombardy, with paintings preserved in many old Italian private collections, the largest share being some eighty works in the collection of Principe Giberto Borromeo at Isola Bella, whose archive also contains more than forty letters by the artist, written mostly from jail. Through his many pupils, his impact on the field of marine, landscape and animal paintings was far-reaching and lasted long far into the eighteenth century.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

References

P.A. Orlandi, Abcedario pittorico, Bologna 1704, p. 119; A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1721), pp. 183-84; L. Pascoli, Vite de‘ pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, 2 vols., Rome 1730-36, I (1730), pp. 177-84; A. Bredius (ed.), Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 8 vols., The Hague 1915-22, VI (1918), p. 2219; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XXV (1931), pp. 259-60 (entry by T.H. Fokker); G.J. Hoogewerff, Nederlandsche kunstenaars te Rome (1600-1725). Uittreksels uit de parochiale archieven, The Hague 1942, pp. 48-51, 66, 76, 142-43, 147, 149-50; G.J. Hoogewerff, De Bentvueghels, The Hague 1952, p. 140; M. Roethlisberger, Cavalier Pietro Tempesta and his Time, Newark 1970, pp. 2-63; L. Salerno, Pittori di paesaggio del Seicento a Roma, 3 vols., Rome 1977-80, II (1978), pp. 638-41; H. Miedema, De archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem, 1497-1789, 2 vols., Alphen aan den Rijn 1980, II, pp. 934, 1039, 1041; H.-U. Beck, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656): Ein Oeuvreverzeichnis, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1972-91, IV (1991), pp. 333-35; P. Schatborn, with J. Verberne, Drawn to Warmth: 17th-century Dutch Artists in Italy, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2001, pp. 165-67; A. Zwollo, ‘Pieter Mulier de Jonge (1637-1701), alias Tempesta, werkzaam als tekenaar in Haarlem, Montfoort, Brussel, Bronnbach en Rome’, Delineavit et Sculpsit 26 (2003), pp. 19-45; A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, LXXXXI (2016), pp. 239-40 (entry by P. Biesboer)