Pieter de Molijn

Pieter de Molijn was a prolific Dutch Golden Age artist active primarily in Haarlem, where he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in 1616.  This painting, which shows soldiers waiting in hiding to ambush oncoming travelers, likely dates to Molijn's early career. It shares a number of notable similarities in figural types, setting and style to his works from about 1629-1631.¹  For example, the figures with their large floppy hats come close to the types found in Molijn's signed and dated drawing of 1629,¹ the foliage and landscape comes close to that found in an early drawing today in Braunschweig,² and the setting and style closely compares to an signed oil painting dated 1630 of a Farm Landscape with a wagon and figures recorded by Beck in a private collection, Houston.³  This painting also shares affinities with a panel formerly attributed to the late career of Esias van de Velde but that is today given to Pieter de Molijn and is datable to circa 1630-31.⁴ 

^1. Pen and brown ink with brown wash, 14.3 by 19.2 cm. See H-U. Beck, Pieter Molyn: Katalog der Handzeichnung, Doornspijk 1998, cat. no. 10.

2. Pen and brown ink with brown wash, 20.2 by 30.7 cm. Beck 1998, cat. no. 13.

3. Oil on panel, 41.5 by 65 cm, recorded in the collection of Jimmy Younger. Beck 1998, cat. no. 784.

4. Oil on panel, 26.7 by 37.5 cm. See https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/59173.