[2] Gerda Madvig was born Gerda Heyman in Copenhagen to the Jewish-Danish industrialist and etatsråd Philip Wulff Heyman,[citation needed] co-founder of Tuborg Brewery and pioneer of Danish butter and bacon exports, and his wife Hanne Emilie Adler, both Danish Jews with roots in Germany.

[3] Madvig learned to draw with the painter and illustrator Carl Thomsen, and then to model with professor August Saabye, with whom she worked for four to five years.

Later, modeled a body-sized figure, called Asra and some busts, among others, one of her sister Jenny, who was married to the painter Georg Seligmann.

Madvig also played music and gave concerts in Paris, where she lived from 1903 until shortly before her death.

Madvig used especially family members as models, but also famous people, both contemporaries, like professor Julius Petersen, and deceased, such as the composer Frédéric Chopin.