At the age of eighteen, he passed the journeyman test to enter the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

[1] He studied with Niels Simonsen and Wilhelm Marstrand and was awarded two silver medals, in 1860 and 1861, when he began exhibiting portraits and small figure compositions.

He was dissatisfied with these works, however and, after failing to win a gold medal, nearly decided to quit painting and become a teacher or clerk.

[1] His most ambitious work and one often described as his main work—Roman Workmen Transporting an Antique Imperial Statue from the Colosseum through the Arch of Titus to the Capitoline Museums was completed shortly before his death.

[2] It combined a Romantic appreciation of ancient Rome with elements of realism in the depiction of the Roman workers and spectators, and it received high praise when displayed in Copenhagen in 1868.