Born on 29 January 1580, Willem Isaacsz. van Swanenburg was a member of a family of artists in Leiden. His father Isaac Claesz. van Swanenburg was a painter and designer of prints, stained glass windows and other objects, who trained Willem and his two brothers Jacob (1571-1638) and Claes (1572-1652) as painters. Willem may have been a pupil of Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629) or Jan Saenredam (1565-1607). One of his most notable prints, a depiction of the sailing car of the Statholder, Prince Maurits of Nassau, Prince of Orange (1567-1625), is after de Gheyn (H. 27). Other prints are after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Abraham Bloemaert (1655-1651), Paulus Moreelse (15751-1638) and Saenredam. Swanenburg’s subject matter ranged from Biblical scenes to genre scenes, portraits and book illustrations. He died in Leiden at the young age of 32 on 31 May 1612.

This series of penitent saints engraved and published by Van Swanenburgh after designs by Abraham Bloemaert, who conceived of them as three contrasting, yet compositionally related pairs: Peter and Paul, Zachaeus and the Magdalen, and King Saul and Judas Iscariot. Below each figure is an inscription composed by C. Plempius and Petrus Scriverious, two renowned Latinist poets, although in the present set only Zachaeus print still includes the poem. To portray the theme of sinners as a group was a fairly unique inconographic development that conveyed a strong Counter-Reformatory message in its promotion of the sacrament of penance, which had been refuted by the Calvinists. The typically Mannerist proportions and contorted poses of Bloemaert’s figures clearly informed Swanenburg’s often serpentine handling of the engraved line. Each figure is presented monumentally and in a dramatic pose, and background vignettes relate to the subjects’ individual narratives.

Swanenburgh published the plates without numbers. The numbers were added by Robert de Baudous (active 1591-1644) who took over Swanenburgh's plates after his death in 1612. The Magdalene from 1609 is probably an earlier, independent piece, closer in style to Saenredam. It bears the address of Jacques Razet who died in 1609 and the plate must have been acquired and incorporated into the set in 1611 at which time the plates were numbered [Roethlisberger, op.cit., fn. 1 and pl. 39]