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Bus #1, #6, #9 or Osterport S-Tog. Copenhagen's most famous symbol, the statue of the Little Mermaid (Den Lille Havfrue), was created in 1913 by Edvard Eriksen. A rather plain bronze figure on top of a pile of carefully positioned rocks by the harbour's edge, the statue has become the city's de facto emblem despite its modest dimensions, and continues to hold a powerful sway over the imagination of Danes and visitors alike, conjuring up a period when Copenhagen was the fairy-tale capital of the world. Inspired by the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen story of the same name, the statue was commissioned by Carlsberg brewery boss and art lover Carl Jacobsen after he had seen a performance of a ballet based on the Little Mermaid story at the Royal Theatre. The prima ballerina in that production, Ellen Price, was to have been the model for the statue, but her reluctance to pose nude for Eriksen forced him to use his wife as a model for the mermaid's body - only the face is Price's. Jacobsen originally wanted the mermaid to have the traditional fish's tail, but Eriksen noted that in Andersen's story the mermaid exchanges her golden hair and beautiful voice for legs - hence the final statue, with the outline of a mermaid's tail between two human limbs
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