Career
He was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Austin Friars church in London. He was a contemporary of Jacob Pinas. De Molijn was possibly a student of Esaias van de Velde.
De Molijn was known for his landscapes, but he also made genre pieces, marine scenes, portraits, and architectural pieces.
This type of oeuvre is typical for the Italian-bound artists of his day, who paid their way as a jack-of-all-trades. He was thought to be a man of 50 by Isaac de Moucheron when he was in Rome (Bent name Ordenantie) in 1697.
He specialized in wilde zwynenjagten, or hunting scenes, in the manner of Frans Snyders. He was visited in prison by January Visser, a painter from the Bentvueghels known as Slempop.
When the French bombarded the city in 1684, he was set free and fled to Parma, where he lived to old age, painting with two eyeglasses, one in front of the other.
According to the art historian Marcel Roethlisberger, the nickname Pietro Tempesta was given to another Haarlemmer, the painter Pieter Mulier II, who was given the name for painting ships in stormy seas.