• Was a Danish painter.
• He was self-taught.
• In the 1740s, he did some drawings for early versions of the Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie by Frederic Louis Norden on behalf of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
• On that basis, in 1754, he was recommended to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for a travel scholarship.
• By 1762, he was established as a scene painter, a profession he would practice until his death.
• After 1773, he was making 500 rigsdalers annually, mostly due to support he received from the Academy against the foreign painter, Carlo Galli da Bibiena.
• In addition to his theater work, he did genre scenes.
• A sister of Caspar Frederik Harsdorff owned a painting of two fisherwomen he had done entirely with his fingers.
• In 1777, he became an "agré" (a type of candidate for membership) at the Academy.
• He had become addicted to alcohol and died of its effects in 1782, aged fifty-six.
