Pieter Claesz. Soutman was a pupil of Rubens, according to the latter's nephew, Philip Rubens. He seems to have worked in Rubens' studio around 1615-1616. In 1619-1620 he registered as an apprentice in the guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, and in September 1620 he became a citizen of that city. Soutman was appointed court painter of King Sigismund III of Poland by 1624; four years later he was back in his native Haarlem. Soutman was much renowned as an etcher after Rubens' designs. (Anne-Marie Logan, Flemish Drawings in the Age of Rubens: Selected Works from American Collections, Wellesley, MA, 1993, p. 212)