The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid sits on a rock at the water's edge on the Langelinie promenade, a small bronze figure gazing wistfully out to sea, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. Unveiled in 1913 and barely a metre and a quarter tall, she is the beloved and famously modest symbol of Copenhagen.

History

The statue was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg, who had been charmed by a ballet of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale at the Royal Theatre and asked its ballerina, Ellen Price, to model for it. She would not pose nude, so the sculptor Edvard Eriksen modelled the bronze on his wife, Eline Eriksen, and it was unveiled on 23 August 1913; the story that the face is Price's is untrue. The figure is 1.25 metres tall and weighs 175 kilograms. In 2010 it travelled to Shanghai for the Expo, the first time it had officially left its rock, while an authorised copy stood in a lake at Tivoli. The statue has been damaged and defaced many times since the 1960s and restored each time (Wikipedia, The Little Mermaid (statue)).

The main sights

• The statue - the small bronze mermaid on her harbour rock.
• The Andersen connection - the fairy tale that inspired her.
• The Langelinie promenade - the waterfront walk to reach her.
• The nearby Kastellet - the star-shaped fortress a short walk away.

When to go

Year-round; early morning avoids the tour crowds that gather through the day. She is a quick stop on a harbour walk.

Practical notes

She is genuinely small and often ringed by crowds and coach groups, so many visitors find her underwhelming, which is part of the joke. It is a five-minute stop, best folded into a longer harbour walk. She has been damaged and repaired several times, so the bronze is not as it left the foundry.

Nearby

Kastellet fortress and the Gefion Fountain are alongside; Nyhavn and the royal palace are a walk away.

Key facts