Painter May Have Beheaded ‘Mermaid’

More than 30 years after a crime that shocked Denmark, the culprit finally may be known in the beheading of “The Little Mermaid.”

The statue of a mermaid gazing out over Copenhagen’s harbor is one of the Danish capital’s most beloved landmarks, drawing half a million tourists a year.

But some people find the statue cloying. The late painter Henrik Bruun was one - and the Politiken newspaper reported Tuesday that he told friends he was the one who had lopped off the statue’s head in 1964.

“It wasn’t a prank but a protest against established and bad art,” said his friend, historian Annemette Soerensen.

The decapitation of the statue received worldwide attention and so dismayed Danes that the case was investigated by the police homicide squad.

The statue was given a new head modeled after the old one.

Carl Jacobsen, founder of the Carlsberg breweries, commissioned Edvard Eriksen to create the mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. The statue was put in place in 1913.