Welcome To The Little Mermaid Of Denmark.

The statue of Den lille Havfrue (or "The Little Mermaid") is probably Copenhagen's and Denmark's most famous symbol.

It was created in 1910 by Edvard Eriksen and is really a statue of very modest dimensions.

Many tourist are surprised to find this little mermaid sitting on a rock along the harbour's edge,
probably expecting something the size of the Statue of Liberty, but it is not.

The statue was commisioned by Carl Jacobsen, owner of the Carlsberg Brewery and art lover,
after at the Royal Theater having seen a ballet based on The Little Mermaid story,
a story by Hans Christian Andersen.

The Little Mermaid has been vandalised several times.
Twice she has even been decapitated.
The statue is a plain bronze figure, and it does not normally have the colours depicted on the postcard.
The photographer must have lit-up the statue using some yellow light.

The Little Mermaid created 1910

The Little Mermaid was put in place in the year 1913.

The Little Mermaid in the wintertime.

The Little Mermaid in the sunset.

The Little Mermaid in the summertime.

Vandalism through more than 40 years.

On April 28th 1963
she was painted over with red paint.

On April 24th 1964.
The head was cut off for the first time, the Danish artist Jørgen Nash admitted that it was him, in his book in 1997.

1964

On July 15th 1976.
She was painted again.

On July 22nd 1984.
She lost her right arm, but already the next day,
the arm was delivered back to the police by two young men,
they had amputated the arm in drunkenness.

1984

On August 5th 1990.
It was discovered that there had been another attempt to saw off her head,
it was sawed almost half off; the cut was 18 cm long.

On January 6th 1998.
Early in the morning it was discovered that the mermaid once again had lost her head.

On June 1st 2003.
The mermaid was over poured with white paint.

On September 11th 2003,
In the morning the police finds the mermaid lying in the water, just below her stone.
The perpetrators had used explosives to overturn the mermaid from her stone

2003