Heinrich Hirschsprung

Heinrich Hirschsprung (7 February 1836–1908) was a Danish tobacco manufacturer, arts patron and art collector, founder of the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen, a museum dedicated to Danish art from the 19th and early 20th century.

Heinrich Hirschsprung was born on 7 February 1836 in Copenhagen into a family of German-Jewish descent. His father, Abraham Marcus, 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. Two years later, in 1827, he married Petrea Hirschsprung née Hertz (1804–1891), and they had six children.

Heinrich and his brother Bernhard took over their father's shop in 1858 and under their leadership the business, now specializing in cigar making, grew rapidly. In 1866, they bought a piece of unused land at Gammelholm, an area which had been a naval site until 1859. There they built a modern factory for manufacting cigars. It was designed by the young architect Ove Petersen in a Historicist style which relied on Italian Renaissance architecture for inspiration.

Heinrich married Pauline Elisabeth Jacobson (9 July 1845 - 1912), afterwards known as Pauline Hirschsprung, on 26 June 1864. They had five children; Ellen, Ivar, Åge, Robert and Oskar. Pauline was the daughter of wholesaler Daniel Simon (1791–1858) and Friederiche Jacobson née Gerhardt (1811–1855).

They had their first apartment on Højbro Plads in Copenhagen and then a house on Bredgade. They also had country homes in the north of Sjælland as well as in Italy.

Hirschsprung's disease is named after his pediatrician brother Harald, who first described it.

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