# Madame Tussauds Wax Museum (London)



## Abishai100

*Madame Tussauds* is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. It used to be known as "Madame Tussaud's"; the apostrophe is no longer used. Madame Tussauds is a major tourist attraction in London, displaying waxworks of famous people.

Marie Tussaud was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius in Bern, Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modelling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling.

Tussaud created her first wax sculpture, of Voltaire, in 1777.  Other famous people she modelled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she modelled many prominent victims. In her memoirs she claims that she would search through corpses to find the severed heads of executed citizens, from which she would make death masks. Her death masks were held up as revolutionary flags and paraded through the streets of Paris. Following the doctor's death in 1794, she inherited his vast collection of wax models and spent the next 33 years travelling around Europe. When she married Francois Tussaud in 1795, the show acquired a new name: Madame Tussaud's.

In 1802 she went to London, having accepted an invitation from Paul Philidor, a magic lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer, to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre, London.  By 1835 Marie had settled down in Baker Street, London, and opened a museum.

(Source of information from top: Wikipedia).

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The Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in London, England has become a great tourist stop for travellers looking for a little vaudevillian color on their tour of Great Britain.  I went there with my family when I was a young boy, and I was impressed by the detail and care with which the wax figurines, made to resemble famous characters in world history, were kept.

This tourist landmark is really England's version of MGM Studios (California, USA), and it highlights a museum-art interest in humanism characterization.

If you're planning an England trip and have Wimbledon and London Bridge on your itinerary and various iconic English bed-and-breakfast spots, consider a stop at Madame Tussauds to top off your tour with a taste of sculpting.

Americans who are intrigued by the annual New Year's Mummers Day Parade should find Madame Tussauds Wax Museum a welcomed 'tourist trap.'

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*Madame Tussauds (Wikipedia)*

*Madame Tussauds (Official Website)*


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