I didn't go down to see the little mermaid (den lille havfrue) but the kids did - so this is their pic. We were docked quite a ways away, so it just wasn't on my list for that day. People are often surprised that its so small. It is only 1.25 metres tall. It's the LITTLE mermaid people - get over it!Its based on the fairy tale of the same name by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was made in 1913. Didn't realize she was so old. It was a gift to the City of Copenhagen from Danish brewer Carl Jacobsen. The ballerina Ellen Price was asked to model for the bronze and granite statue, and the face is hers, but she would not agree to model in the nude, so the body is that of the sculptor's wife Eline Eriksen.
The statue has been damaged and defaced many times and has always been restored. And geeze when they vandalize a statue down there they mean business - her head was sawn off and stolen, her arm was sawn off and she has a gash in the neck from a further beheading attempt. Sheesh. Then on more separate occasions she was decapitated again, knocked off her base with explosives, draped in a burqa, had a dildo attached to her hand,and had paint poured on her many many times for many many causes.
