Abildgaard was his teacher and mentor in Copenhagen. Carstens and Koch became good expatriate-artist friends and mutual supporters in Rome, Koch sharing lodgings with him for a while; Lund, Eckersberg, Cornelius and Overbeck were other Rome acquaintances and colleagues. He gave Andersen a story from his own youth, when he was told off for climbing onto an equestrian statue, and also helped him get through a crisis in his writing. Byron thought Thorvaldsen’s portrait bust of him made him look too happy, Shelley considered him a bit of a poser, and Mendelssohn played piano duets with him in his studio.