Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, Moise Kisling, Diego Rivera, Jean Cocteau, Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz all sat for Modigliani between the years 1915 and 1918, but he made more portraits of his close friend Chaim Soutine than of any other artist. This is one of three known drawings and four oils on canvas. The best known painting is in the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Ceroni, no. 155), dated 1916 and is the most mannerist, but perhaps in its exaggerated elongation the least faithful to Soutine's actual appearance. Another, (Ceroni, no. 217) was painted by Modigliani on a door in the flat of his dealer Léopold Zborowski, and two others (Ceroni, nos. 99 and 141), present Soutine the most faithfully, as does this drawing. When a young man he was plump, with large hands and fleshy lips.

As [Modigliani's] control increased (and many eye witnesses have noted that even when he was so shaken by drugs and drink that he could scarcely sit upright, the control of his hand never
waivered) so did his power to translate the essence of a being to a page. Elliptical, economical and elusive, his line is
yet concise and eloquent. We feel the likenesses are speaking
likenesses. (A. Morgan, Modigliani, Cambridge, 1959, p. 10)