Rosenthal was born in Philadelphia, where he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under his father, the painter Max Rosenthal. He continued his studies abroad at the Académie Julian, Paris in 1880; at the École des Beaux-Arts under Jean Leon Gérôme; and at Munich’s Academy. He exhibited regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for fifty years (from the 1880s through the 1930s). Known for society portraits such as the current example, the artist’s work bridged the Victorian and Edwardian aesthetics in America.
