PETER, was born at Rotterdam in 1650, and was a good painter of inanimate objects; but the most memorable particular relative to this artist was the incident which occasioned his death.

He was requested to paint an emblematical picture of mortality, representing human skulls and bones, surrounded with rich gems and musical instruments, to express the vanity of this world's pleasures, amusements, or possessions; and that he might imitate nature with the greater exactness, he went into an anatomy room, where several skeletons hung by wires from the ceiling, and bones, skulls, &c. lay scattered about; and immediately prepared to make his designs.

While he was thus employed, either by fatigue, or by intense study, insensibly he fell asleep; but was suddenly roused by a shock of an earthquake, which happened at that instant, on the 18th of September 1692. The moment he awoke, he observed the skeletons move about as they were shaken in different directions, and the loose skulls roll from one side of the room to the other; and being totally ignorant of the cause, he was struck with such a horror, that he threw himself down stairs, and tumbled into the street half dead. His friends took all possible pains to efface the impression made on his mind by that unlucky event, and acquainted him with the real cause of the agitation of the skeletons; yet the transaction still affected his spirits in so violent a manner, that it brought on a disorder, which in a short time ended his days. His general subjects were either allegorical or emblematical allusions to the shortness and misery of human life.