The monument was built in 1611 during the reign of King
Christian IV.
Lauritz de Thurah's
Den Danske Vitruvius (1st volume, 1746) incorrectly states that the statue was brought home from
Kalmar as
war loot. The monument was built on an artificial islet with walled sides, on a shallow-watered
sandbar known as the
Mermaid Bar due to a particularly high frequency of reported
mermaid sightings, just outside the entrance to a new naval harbour, the
Arsenal Harbour which was completed about the same time. In 1795, the monument was removed when increasing ship traffic in the harbour made it necessary to dig out the area which, by then, was only one metre deep. The fate of the statue is uncertain. Some reports state that shortly before 1900 it was to be found on a garden lot at
Frederiksberg Allé. ==Gallery==