The Little Mermaid statue was a present from brewer Carl Jacobsen (The Carlsberg Breweries) to the city of Copenhagen, and was made by sculptor Edvard Erichsen. The Little Mermaid was unveiled at Langelinje in 1913, as part of a general trend in Copenhagen in those days, requiring classical and historic figures to be used as decorations in the city's parks and public areas.
Copenhagen's Little Mermaid symbolizes the fairy tale by Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen, the story of a mermaid who fell in love with a prince from land, and often came up to the edge of the water to look for her love. The sculpture pictures her as she sits and looks out over the water, after never actually having married the prince, and reminiscing over her lost childhood in the sea, as a mermaid.
Nyhavn, the recreational center of Copenhagen, is part of the original Copenhagen Harbor all the way back to the founding of Haven, as Copenhagen was then called, in the 12th century.
Ship's figurehead on balcony of apartment building in Nyhavn.
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