Little Mermaid

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Front view of the statue
The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen Harbor

The Little Mermaid ( Danish Den lille Havfrue ) is a bronze figure on the Langelinie waterfront in Copenhagen called. The seated figure on a boulder is modeled on the fairy tale of the same name by the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen . With a height of 125 cm, the work of art based on the design by Edvard Eriksen is one of the smallest landmarks in the world.

history

The Copenhagen sculptor Edvard Eriksen (1876–1959) created the sculpture Little Mermaid , which was erected in 1913 and which was to become a symbol of Copenhagen. The artist was inspired by the figure of Jeanne d'Arc by Henri Chapu in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek . He designed the head after the model of the prima ballerina Ellen Price (1878–1968), who was very popular in 1909 in Copenhagen as the leading actress in a ballet of the same name. The body was modeled after his wife Eline (1881–1963), as Price had refused to serve the artist as a nude model .

The client was the art patron and son of the founder of the Copenhagen-based Carlsberg Brewery , Carl Jacobsen . On August 23, 1913, a copy of the 175 kg figure was placed in its current location, the Langelinie promenade created by Henrik August Flindt and Vilhelm Dahlerup and completed in 1900 . The original is being kept in an unknown location by Eriksen's descendants.

In 2009 the sculpture Survival of the Fattest was placed next to her.

At the end of March 2010, the figure was removed and shown from May to October in the Danish pavilion at the Expo in Shanghai . Then she returned to her usual place.

vandalism

The statue has repeatedly been the target of vandalism. The head (April 24, 1964), the right arm (July 22, 1984) and again the head (January 6, 1998) were sawed off; the figure was also thrown from the rock, probably with the help of explosives (September 11, 2003). The sculpture was repeatedly restored and, if necessary, supplemented, including one of the two original plaster figures that were still in existence. In March 2007, she was sprayed with pink paint during a demonstration . In the spring of 2017, the mermaid was given two colors: First she was sprayed with "Denmark, defend the whales of the Faroe Islands" to draw attention to the killing of whales off the Faroe Islands . Two weeks later the sculpture was painted blue and white. The inscription "Befri Abdulle" (Liberated Abdulle) was found near the ground. In early July 2020 the statue was smeared with the words "Racist Fish"; a connection with Black Lives Matter protests was not confirmed.

Replicas

Crowds of visitors on a Sunday in summer in Copenhagen

Replicas of the sculpture are located in Solvang, California, Kimballton (Iowa), Vancouver (Canada) and Piatra Neamț (Romania). Half-size specimens are available in Calgary, Canada and the International Peace Garden in Salt Lake City .

Web links

Commons : Little Mermaid  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Color attack on the Little Mermaid . In Spiegel Online , last accessed: June 3, 2017
  2. ↑ Vandalism: Again: Mermaid this time in blue and white. In: The North Schleswig . June 14, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Copenhagen's Little Mermaid labeled "racist fish". In: Reuters . July 3, 2020, accessed July 7, 2020 .

Coordinates: 55 ° 41 ′ 34.3 "  N , 12 ° 35 ′ 57.4"  E