Pieter Mulier the Younger, called Il Tempesta Haarlem 1637 - 1701 Milan

J. O'Conner Lynch, by 1969.

Cavalier Tempesta was the leading landscape painter in northern Italy in the late seventeenth century, the bridge between Gaspar Dughet, Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa and the later Venetian artists such as Marco Ricci.  He was born in Haarlem, the son of a successful marine painter, Pieter Mulier the Elder, moved to Antwerp when he was around 18 and then travelled to Rome in 1656. 

In Rome he developed his landscape style, which was influenced by the classicism of Dughet on one hand and the 'romanticism' of Rosa on the other.  In late 1668 he moved to Genoa, where he stayed until late 1684, interrupted only by a short stay in Rome and an eight-year term in prison for the murder of his first wife. 

Roethlisbergher dates the Landscape with the Rape of Europa to Tempesta's Genoese period.  The main characters -- Europa, her distraught attendants and the bull -- are relegated to the middle distance, so that despite the drama of the subject, one is first drawn to the courting couple in the foreground and the peacefully resting animals.  The young cowherd and his pretty companion can barely be bothered to look at the abduction in the distance.  They gaze raptly at each other, propping themselves up on the backs of the acquiescent cows. The most dramatic effect is the landscape itself with its deep blue sky and towering clouds and, in the far distance a storm is gathering over the mountains.

We are grateful to Dr. Mary Newcome Schleier for pointing out that the figures in this painting are by Domencio Piola (Genoa 1627-1703).