(b Schleswig, 13 Oct 1798; d Copenhagen, 10 March 1868). Danish sculptor. He studied at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, Copenhagen, from 1816. Originally intending to become a painter, he decided after a few years to devote himself to sculpture, partly as a result of seeing the works of Bertel Thorvaldsen in Copenhagen in 1819. In 1823 Bissen gained the academy's grand gold medal and a travelling bursary, and he left for Rome in 1824, making several stops in Germany and Italy en route. He stayed in Rome for over ten years, and as well as making a number of small trips to southern Italy with his friend the sculptor Hermann Ernst Freund, Bissen got the chance to work in Thorvaldsen's studio in Rome. He eventually became one of Thorvaldsen's most trusted collaborators, and in 1833-4 he even carried out a commission in Thorvaldsen's name, the monument to Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz. After Thorvaldsen's death in 1844 he completed several of his master's works.
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