Pieter Claesz Soutman
Dutch, 1580 - 1657
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Pieter Claesz Soutman was a Dutch Golden Age painter and printmaker from Haarlem.
Soutman was born and died in Haarlem, where he was a contemporary of Frans Hals, Hendrick Gerritsz Pot, and Pieter Claesz, and seems to have been influenced by all three, considering the various attributions of his paintings through the centuries. According to the RKD, he was the youngest of six children of the wealthy Catholic owner of the Haarlem beer brewery De Werelt. According to Houbraken, Soutmann trained with Peter Paul Rubens in Antwerp. He must have been successful, because Samuel Ampzing mentions him in his poem about Haarlem. Probably during Prince Władysław Vasa's visit to Antwerp in 1624, he was recommended by Rubens as an excellent painter.
That same year he went to Poland, where he was appointed royal court painter. Soutman was employed as a servitor of the king Sigismund III Vasa until 1628, when he returned to Haarlem. His family connections enabled him to become affiliated with the Catholic Hofje Codde en Van Beresteijn. Today this is one hofje, but in his day it was two; the Hofje of Codde and the Hofje of Beresteijn. He was probably regent of the Codde hofje. Soutman became a respected portrait painter in Haarlem and won many commissions for group portraits, including lucrative schutterstukken.