The life-size bronze figure is based on a real story. The fisherman in waders and coarse trousers carries the petite, thinly dressed young woman with strong hands. Her body hangs limply. Adolf Brütt experienced the story himself in the 1880s in Möltenort, where he was a frequent bather. The fisherman Klaus Löpthien carried the rescued woman ashore. The Low German poet Fritz Lau was there as a boy and brought the sculptor a cart full of clay for the first modeling.
As a major work of German realism, the sculpture was purchased by the Berlin National Gallery. The first cast went from Berlin to Flensburg on permanent loan and still stands there today on the Museumsberg. The second cast was returned to the scene in Möltenort in 1991.
Adolf Brütt was born on May 10, 1855 in Husum. After an apprenticeship as a stone sculptor in Kiel, he studied for three years at the Berlin Art Academy. At the turn of the century, he was considered one of the most important German sculptors and created, among other things, the monument to Nobel Prize winner for literature Theodor Mommsen in front of the Humboldt University in Berlin.