One of the world’s most famous and popular tourist attractions, this
wax museum in
London was founded in
1835. Today, the museum has branches in
Amsterdam (
1971),
Las Vegas (
1999),
New York (
2000), and
Hong Kong (
2000).
Madame Tussaud (
1761-
1850) was born
Marie Grosholtz in
Strasburg. Her father, a
German soldier, died before she was born, and her mother brought her up in
Berne,
Switzerland. Her mother was a housekeeper for a doctor,
Philippe Curtius, who had an interesting hobby:
wax modeling. He even ran a
museum of his wax heads and busts.
Dr. Curtius’ creations were a big hit in
France, and Marie and her mother followed him there. Young Marie became Dr. Curtius’ assistant, learned his craft, and became immersed in the
French court, eventually becoming art teacher to the sister of King
Louis XVI. She modeled prominent figures like
Voltaire and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
When Dr. Curtius fell in with the
Jacobins, Marie met
Maximillien Robespierre and a number of other future revolutionaries. Perhaps this is what saved her life during the
French Revolution. To prove her loyalty to the revolutionary cause, she was forced into the gruesome task of making casts of the heads of victims of the
guillotine, including many people who were once her friends and acquaintances, and even King Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette. She also made the
death mask of
Jean Paul Marat and a cast of the head of his killer
Charlotte Corday. She would sketch the scene of his death for painter
Jacques Louis David (see
The Death of Marat). And when the
karma wheel spun around to claim Robespierre, she made a cast of his head too.
When Dr. Curtius died, he left Marie his creations. In
1795, she married a man named
Francois Tussaud and bore two sons, Joseph and Francis. She abandoned him in
1802 and took her boys and her waxworks to begin successful tours of the
British Isles.
In
1835, she stopped touring and opened the museum on the corner of
Baker Street and
Portman Square. In addition to her wax creations, she exhibited a number of artifacts of the French Revolution, including a guillotine blade! The
Chamber of Horrors, as the name might suggest, was a special room devoted to murderers.
Marie Tussaud took a hands-on approach to operating her museum, including collecting money from visitors, right up until her death at age 89.
Notable events in the museum’s history:
1895:
Alfred Monson sues Tussaud’s for
libel, objecting to his placement in the Chamber of Horrors. Monson was accused of killing
Cecil Hambrough, his young ward, for the insurance money, but avoided conviction in a sensational trial. Monson wins, but the jury awards him the token amount of a single
farthing.
1925: An electrical fire destroys many wax creations and French artifacts, including the campaign coach of
Napoleon. The museum is restored in
1928.
1940: A
German bomb destroys 325 head molds and the museum’s cinema. Ironically, the wax figure of
Adolf Hitler survives.