The Mermaid Mother and Child in Beaulieu-sur-Mer

Located by the marina in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, the sculpture was created in 1997 by Natasha Jusopov, who also sculpted the Lorelei statue in Germany and the Lake Geneva mermaid statue in 1965.

The Sculptor

Natascha de Senger (1925–2012) — known under several names including Natascha Alexandrovna Jusupov and Natascha Jusopov — was a Swedish and Swiss sculptor of remarkable range and cosmopolitan reach. Born in Gothenburg into a family of Russian aristocratic émigrés, she produced her first sculptures at the age of six. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, where Prince Eugen of Sweden became her patron, then trained with some of the most significant sculptors of the twentieth century: Carl Milles at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, Wäinö Aaltonen in Finland, and Giacomo Manzù at the Academy of Brera in Milan. She maintained studios across six countries and spoke six languages. She died in Tällberg, Sweden, in 2012, and is buried in Geneva's Cimetière des Rois — the Cemetery of Kings — in recognition of her contribution to the city's cultural life.

Other Works

The Beaulieu mother and child is the last of three public mermaids Natascha de Senger created over more than three decades. The first was the celebrated Sirène du Léman (Lake Geneva Mermaid), placed on a rock off the shore of Collonge-Bellerive in 1966 and now one of Geneva's most beloved landmarks. The second was the Lorelei in Germany. The Beaulieu piece arrived in 1997 — thirty years after her first mermaid — and carries the same quiet tenderness: not the solitary longing of the Little Mermaid tradition, but a mother simply holding her child.

The Location

Beaulieu-sur-Mer sits on a narrow strip of the French Riviera between Nice and Monaco. During the Belle Époque it became one of Europe's most fashionable winter resorts, attracting Queen Victoria, Emperor Wilhelm II, Leo Tolstoy, and Igor Stravinsky (who composed Petrushka nearby in the winter of 1910–11). The marina where the sculpture stands only opened in 1968, after an earlier proposal by American newspaper magnate Gordon Bennett was famously rejected by the town. It now holds more than 700 berths and is one of the most highly regarded marinas on the Côte d'Azur.