Madame Tussauds

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Madame Tussauds and the London Planetarium.
Madame Tussauds and the London Planetarium.

Madame Tussauds is a famous wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud.

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Marie Tussaud (1761–1850) was born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, who was a physician skilled in wax modelling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling. In 1765, Curtius made a waxwork of Marie-Jeanne du Barry, Louis XV's mistress. A cast of that mould is the oldest work currently on display. The first exhibition of Curtius' waxworks was shown in 1770, and attracted a large audience. The exhibition moved to the Palais Royal in Paris in 1776. He opened a second location on Boulevard du Temple in 1782, the "Caverne des Grands Voleurs", a precursor to the later Chamber of Horrors.

Madame Tussauds in New York City
Madame Tussauds in New York City

Tussaud created her first wax figure, of Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, in 1777. Other famous people she modelled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she made wax death masks of prominent victims. She would search through corpses to find the decapitated heads of the citizens which the death masks were to depict. When Curtius died in 1794, he left his collection of waxworks to Marie. In 1802, she went to London. As a result of the Franco-English war, she was unable to return to France, so she travelled throughout Great Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection. For a time, it was displayed at the Lyceum Theatre. She established her first permanent exhibition on Baker Street in London in 1835 (on the "Baker Street Bazaar").

One of the main attractions of her museum was the Chamber of horrors. This part of the exhibition included some victims of the French Revolution and also newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. The name was given by a contributor to Punch in 1845.

Other famous people were added to the exhibition, including Horatio Nelson, and Sir Walter Scott. Some of the sculptures done by Tussaud herself still exist. In 1842, she made a self portrait which is now on display at the entrance of her museum.

The museum moved to its current location on Marylebone Road in 1884. In 1925 a fire destroyed many of the figures, but the moulds survived, allowing the historical waxworks to be remade.

New Washington, D.C. location
New Washington, D.C. location

Madame Tussaud's wax museum has now grown to become a major tourist attraction in London, incorporating (until recently) the London Planetarium in its west wing. It has expanded with branches in Amsterdam, Las Vegas, New York City, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Washington DC, with additional locations scheduled to open in Berlin in July 2008 and Hollywood in 2009. Today's wax figures at Tussauds include historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars and famous murderers. Known as "Madame Tussauds" museums (no apostrophe), they are owned by a leisure company called Merlin Entertainments, following the acquisition of The Tussauds Group in May 2007.

Sculpture of Adolf Hitler, London
Sculpture of Adolf Hitler, London
Sculpture of Winston Churchill, London
Sculpture of Winston Churchill, London
Sculpture of Shakespeare, London
Sculpture of Shakespeare, London
Sculptures of the Beatles, London
Sculptures of the Beatles, London
Sculpture of Charlie Chaplin, London
Sculpture of Charlie Chaplin, London
Sculpture of Julia Roberts, London
Sculpture of Julia Roberts, London
Sculpture of Sean Connery, London
Sculpture of Sean Connery, London
Sculpture of The Queen Mother, London
Sculpture of The Queen Mother, London
Sculpture of Will Smith, London
Sculpture of Will Smith, London
Sculpture of Chef Jamie Oliver, London
Sculpture of Chef Jamie Oliver, London
The wax sculpture of Andy Lau (劉德華), Hong Kong.
The wax sculpture of Andy Lau (劉德華), Hong Kong.

  • Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors: Two Hundred Years of Crime by Pauline Chapman [1]

  • Madame Tussauds is the focus of Steve Taylor's song 'Meltdown (at Madame Tussaud's)' in which the song talks about someone turning up the thermostat (and claims it never did work) and causing the wax figures to melt.
  • The Doctor Who episode, "Spearhead from Space", features a scene at Madame Tussauds.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

  1. ^ First published by Constable London in 1984 ISBN 0 09 465620 7. Appears to be an illustrated biography of Marie Tussaud


Coordinates: 51°31′22″N, 0°09′19″W

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