His father, Joseph Rosenthal, was a lover of old books and odd bric-a-brac. Rosenthal was the eldest son of the market trader Joseph Rosenthal, who ran an art and antiques shop in Fellheim. His mother Dorlene, née Bacharach, was born into a Jewish family of butchers from Fellheim.
Rosenthal apprenticed in Ellwangen, Baden-Württemberg before opening his business in Fellheim. He grew up in the town"s Jewish community and attended the Jewish-Christian school.
In 1868, he moved to Munich and established himself at 16 Hildegardstrasse, almost immediately behind the Bavarian National Museum. Rosenthal"s three siblings were Jette, Nathan and Jacob, who later, changed his name to Jacques. At the age of thirteen, he transferred to the Buxheim Charterhouse.
After training as a bookseller with Isaak Hess in Ellwangen, Rosenthal opened his own art and antiques trade in 1859 in Fellheim.
In the holdings, there was a map of the circumnavigation of Magellan from the year 1523. Around the turn of the century, Rosenthal"s Antiquariat contained more than a million books, and was larger than the Bavarian State Library.
Rosenthal died in 1928. During the Nazi period, part of family was able to migrate to the United States.
