(bapt. London, 6 Apr. 1595; bur. Haarlem, 23 Mar. 1661). Dutch landscape painter, born in England (it is not known why his parents had moved there) and active mainly in Haarlem. With Jan van Goyen, and Salomon van Ruysdael, also active in Haarlem, he ranks as one of the pioneers of naturalistic landscape painting in Holland. It is not known if these three artists worked together, if they arrived at similar solutions independently, or if one of them began experiments with monochromatic pictures of dunes and cottages and the others followed his lead. However, Molyn's Sand Dune (1626, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus., Brunswick) is earlier than any comparable dated picture by van Goyen or Ruysdael. Molyn's later career was less distinguished, and he seems then to have worked more as a draughtsman than a painter.