Anton Schoonjans

Anton Schoonjans was born in Ninove, Flanders (today in Belgium). He apprenticed under Peter Paul Rubens’s student, Erasmus Quellinus II, before moving to Rome in 1675, where he studied Italian Baroque painting and became a member of the Bentveughels, a society of Flemish and Dutch artists. Appointed court painter in 1693 to Emperor Leopold I in Vienna, he later held this position in Denmark, the Netherlands, England, and the German kingdoms. While in Berlin from 1702 to 1703, he decorated the Charlottenburg royal palace and painted the Portrait of Court Jew with Ring, possibly modeled on the recently deceased Court Jew and jeweler, Jost Liebmann (d. 1702).