(b Antwerp, c. 1600; d ?Haarlem, after 1644). Flemish printmaker. It is likely that he was apprenticed to Pieter Soutman in Antwerp. Van Sompel, who worked continuously with Soutman, presumably followed his master to Haarlem in 1628. He collaborated on Soutmans’s series of prints of royal portraits. His engraving style has the same light touch as Soutman’s but shows more use of the engraver’s burin, with larger areas left blank. His oeuvre (28 prints) consists mostly of portrait etchings—in some places retouched with the engraver’s burin—after designs by Anthony van Dyck and Soutman, who was responsible for the elaborate ornamental borders on many of van Sompel’s works (e.g. Philip the Bold; Hollstein, no. 6). Van Sompel’s best work is a series of four etchings after Rubens (e.g. the Crucifixion; Hollstein, no. 1): these prints, which seem to have been influenced by Lucas Vorsterman the elder, are particularly striking for their fine tonal and sculptural effects.