He was the son of Johann Baptist Schönfeld (?-1635); a
goldsmith. From birth, he was blind in his left eye and could only use his right hand for simple tasks, so he was not trained as a goldsmith, as would have otherwise been the case. Instead, he received lessons in painting from in
Memmingen. Later, he took study trips to
Stuttgart and
Basel. In 1633, at the height of the
Thirty Years' War, he fled to Italy. Originally, he lived in Rome, then moved to Naples around 1649. After a brief stay in
Dresden he returned home in 1651. The following year, in Pfuhl (near
Ulm) he married Anna Elisabetha Strauß. They had eight children together. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to
Augsburg, where he became a citizen and a member of the Master's Guild. In the following years, he created many church paintings; notably at
Würzburg Cathedral, where he painted Christ carrying the Cross and a likeness of Saint
Leonard of Noblac. Both paintings burned during the
bombing of Würzburg in World War II. In addition to religious works, he painted mythological and
genre scenes. One of his best-known students was
Johann Schmidtner. ==References==