Heinrich Hirschsprung

His father, Abraham Marcus Hirschsprun (1793–1871), had been born in Friedberg near Frankfurt am Main in 1783 but moved to Denmark where he opened a small tobacco business in Copenhagen's Hotel D'Angleterre in 1826.

It was designed by a young architect Ove Petersen (1830–1892) in a Historicist style which was inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture.

Krøyer who met him through Frants Henningsen, (1850–1908), a mutual friend at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi).

Hirschsprung helped finance Krøyer's travels and foreign residence during the years 1877–1881, giving him the financial support needed to develop his artistic skills.

Krøyer, their homes were gathering places for other contemporary artists as authors such as Holger Drachmann (1846–1908), Herman Bang (1857–1912) and Henrik Pontoppidan (1857–1943) and painters Wilhelm Marstrand (1810–1873), Frederik Vermehren (1823–1910), Otto Bache (1839–1927), Kristian Zahrtmann (1843–1917) as well as Frants Henningsen.

The Hirschsprung Collection (Den Hirschsprungske Samling) opened with 45 paintings, 13 pastels, 205 drawings, 14 watercolors, 12 busts, 55 sketchbooks as well as P.S.