The Little Mermaid (statue) cities; others include: "Manneken Pis" in Brussels, the Statue of Liberty in New York and "Christ the Redeemer" in Rio de Janeiro. In several cases, cities have commissioned statues for such a purpose, such as with Singapore's "Merlion". The statue was commissioned in 1909 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, 1913. The statue's head was modelled after Price,
Bartholdi Fountain Auguste Bartholdi, and it was cast by the Durenne foundry in France, which had won awards for its cast-iron fountains at earlier international expositions in 1862, 1867 and 1873. Bartholdi offered the fountain to the Exposition for free; he intended to sell it afterwards, and to sell others of the same design to other cities. The fountains stood at the center of the esplanade, near the main entrance to the exposition. When the exposition ended in 1877, Bartholdi did not find any buyers for his fountain. One year later it was purchased by the United States Congress, which offered him