Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg

Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg or Willem Schubart van Ehrenberg (also: Wilhem Schubert von Ehrenberg or Wilhem Schubert van Ehrenberg (Antwerp, 1630 or 1637– Antwerp, c. 1676) was a Flemish painter mainly active in Antwerp who specialized in architectural paintings including of real and imaginary church interiors, Renaissance palaces and picture galleries.

Most likely born in Antwerp where his baptism is recorded on 12 May 1630 (despite an unnamed source stating he was born in Germany), he entered the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1662. He resided in Antwerp for most of his life. It is possible he travelled to Italy as he made drawings of Italian subjects.

The date of his death is not known with certainty and is believed to have occurred between 1687 (the latest date of one of his dated works) and 1707.

He was the teacher of the painter of architecture paintings Jacobus Ferdinandus Saey.

His son Peter Schubart von Ehrenberg was also an artist who had a successful career as a painter, engraver and stage designer in Vienna.

The majority of van Ehrenberg's pictures were painted between 1660 and 1670. He often collaborated with other artists who added the figures or animals. This was a common practice in 17th century Antwerp. His collaborators included Hendrik van Minderhout, Gaspar de Witte, Hieronymus Janssens and Charles Emmanuel Biset.

Van Ehrenberg painted many architectural paintings usually of imaginary church interiors, temples, palaces and art galleries. Paintings such as the Interior of the Saint-Carolus-Borromeus Church in Antwerp (1667; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels) emphasize the Baroque architecture of the space depicted, but are more artificial than his Dutch Golden Age contemporaries such as Pieter Jansz Saenredam or Emanuel de Witte. His Interior of the St. Peters' Church in Rome stands in the tradition of Antwerp architecture art from the first half of the 17th century. However, the spatial effect in the oeuvre of van Ehrenberg is stronger. He showed a particular preference for the fantastic and pathetic, which he emphasized further with light-dark contrasts and a staffage of almost dwarfish figures (often painted by other artists).

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