The sculpture is displayed on a rock by the waterside at the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen , Denmark. Based on the fairy tale of the same name by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen , the small and unimposing statue is a Copenhagen icon and has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in In recent decades it has become a popular target for defacement by vandals and political activists.
The statue was commissioned in by Carl Jacobsen , son of the founder of Carlsberg , who had been fascinated by a ballet about the fairytale in Copenhagen's Royal Theatre and asked the ballerina, Ellen Price, to model for the statue.
The sculptor Edvard Eriksen created the bronze statue, which was unveiled on August 23, The Copenhagen City Council arranged to move the statue to Shanghai at the Danish Pavilion for the duration of the Expo May to October , the first time it had been moved officially from its perch since it was installed almost a century earlier. The statue has been damaged and defaced many times since the mids for various reasons, but has been restored each time. On January 6, , the statue was decapitated again; [ 9 ] [ 10 ] the culprits were never found, but the head was returned anonymously to a nearby television station, and reattached on February 4.
On the night of September 10, , the statue was knocked off its base with explosives and later found in the harbour's waters. Holes had been blasted in the mermaid's wrist and knee.
Paint has been poured on the statue several times, including one episode in and two in March and May It is suspected that this vandalism was connected with International Women's Day , which is on March 8. Later, police said the writing was likely referring to Abdulle Ahmed, a Somalian refugee who has been detained in a high security unit in Denmark since due to a custody sentence.
