Hans Peter Hansen was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 xylographer who specialized in portraits.

He first learned the profession of watchmaking before studying woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

ting under Hans Christian Henneberg, Johann Adolf Kittendorff, and Johan Peter Aagaard. At the same time, he also followed courses at the Academy of Arts of Copenhagen (1843/44).

In 1854, he travelled to Germany, first to Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 and then to Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, where he settled. In 1859, he married Clara Aurelia Sophie Langer (August 5, 1830 – July 1, 1913), the daughter of the engraver Georg Gottfried Langer and sister of engraver Karl Hermann Theodor Langer (December 17, 1819 – 1895).

In 1864, he returned to Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, where he worked for several illustrated magazines and newspapers, such as Illustreret Tidende

Illustreret Tidende

Illustreret Tidende was a Danish weekly illustrated magazine published from 1859–1924 with international news, literature and entertainment content....

and Ude og Hjemme. He also illustrated books, amongst them Nyere Dansk Malerkunst (Sigurd Müller, 1884) and the children books printed by Richardt's and Rode's.