Andreas Buntzen
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Andreas Buntzen (18 September 1781 - 9 June 1830) was a Danish general trader. His home at Overgaden oven Vandet 54–56 in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen was a meetingplace for many prominent cultural figures of his time. The author Carl Bernhard has described it in Et år i København.
Buntzen was born in Copenhagen, the son of Andreas Buntzen (1733-1810) and Marie Margrethe Ache. On 17 June 1772, Andreas Buntzen Sr. had acquired citizenship as a wholesale merchant in Copenhagen. He owned a large property at the corner of Overgaden Oven Vandet and Bådsmandstræde in Christianshavn. Andreas Buntzen lived in the building with his parents and sister Anne Bolette Buntzen at the time of the 1787 census. The other members of the household were the mother's mother Bolette Achem Anne Cathrine Buurmeister, an office clerk in the family's trading firm, a caretaker and two maids.[1]
Career
Buntzen received a commercial education in his father's trading firm. In 1804, he was made a partner in the firm which from then on traded as Andreas Buntzen & Søn. He continued the operations alone following the father's death in 1810. On 19 June 1812, he acquired citizenship as a wholesale merchant (grosserer) in Copenhagen. He was hit hard by the Gunboat War and his economic difficulties worsened following the state bankruptcy in 1813. In 1820, the firm went bankrupt. In 1829, he was employed as an official (kornskriver) by the Port Authority.[2]