The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen (Denmark)

The Little Mermaid is a bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen depicting a mermaid becoming human. The sculpture is displayed on a rock by the waterside at the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen Denmark. It is 1.25 meters tall and weighs 175 kilograms. Based on the 1837 fairy tale of the same name by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen the small and unimposing statue is a Copenhagen icon and has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913. In recent decades it has become a popular target for defacement by vandals and political activists. The statue was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen son of the founder of Carlsberg who had been fascinated by a ballet about the fairytale in Copenhagens Royal Theatre and asked the ballerina Ellen Price to model for the statue. The sculptor Edvard Eriksen created the bronze statue which was unveiled on August 23 1913. The statues head was modeled after Price but as the ballerina did not agree to model in the nude the sculptors wife Eline Eriksen was used for the body.