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Gerda and the Reindeer has been back in Marlot since March 21, 2024! Read more at the bottom of the text.

In a quiet spot in Park Marlot stands a reindeer. Its head leans forward towards a little girl who seems to be whispering something to it. Who are these figures and where do they come from? For connoisseurs, it is clear: the two figures have run away from 'The Snow Queen', a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The girl Gerda is the main character. Aided by a talking reindeer, she follows her boyfriend Kai who has been kidnapped by the Snow Queen. She finds him and makes his cold heart thaw again.

This was the subject Corinne Franzen-Heslenfeld chose for the sculpture she had to make in return for the Prix de Rome. In the meantime, she had just married and, as was still quite common in the 1950s and 1960s, had returned from Rome to join her husband.

Franzen-Heslenfeld was a headstrong woman who, despite many doubts and opposition from her surroundings, always fulfilled her ambitions. She was responsible for gigantic stone-carved sculptures such as the freedom monuments in Utrecht and Noordwijk and the two metres-high athletic nudes on the entrance gate to the Zuiderpark. She has also made countless portrait busts and sculptures of children in clay, bronze and stone.

Gerda en het rendier' was commissioned by the then Minister of Education, Arts and Sciences, Mr Jan Terpstra. Heslenfeld had to design a sculpture for a children's park. That explains her choice of the fairy tale. For lack of another suitable location, it became Marlot, one of The Hague's parks. Heslenfeld had no objection to this. Her sculpture stands there exactly as she wished: against a leafy green background. The sculpture still stands there and in the same entourage: just as steadfast as Gerda's love for her boyfriend Kai.

For a while it seemed that the lovely statue Gerda and the Reindeer would never return to Mariahoeve. During a brief but violent summer storm in early July 2023, the already fragile statue fell. It was already somewhat weakened by previous repairs, and time - it had existed for more than 80 years - had made the soft stone from which it was made even more fragile. But ... because it was such a beloved scene, the municipality had once had a 3-D scan made of it. That came in handy now. Over the winter, a copy was made in China. Also in sandstone just like the original. In mid-March 2024, the replica was returned to park Marlot. There, little Gerda once again whispers to the reindeer. To the delight of residents and hikers.