MADAME TUSSAUD
Marie Tussaud was a French-speaking German artist, born in Strasbourg in 1761. Sent to Berne as a young woman, she became the housekeeper of a wax sculptor, Dr Curtius, in whose footsteps she was to follow. They moved to Paris, where she was soon making wax sculptures for the nobility at the Royal court in Versailles. She was subsequently involved in the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror, in charge of fabricating death masks for victims, and narrowly avoided a death sentence herself.
She arrived in London in 1802 and toured her waxwork collection round the country until finally setting up her first permanent exhibition on Baker Street in 1833. Today, Madame Tussaud’s is an international tourist attraction with branches in cities such as Berlin, Shanghai, New York and Las Vegas.
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Kate Berridge is the author of Vigor Mortis: The End of the Death Taboo, and Waxing Mythical: The Life and Legend of Madame Tussaud. When she is not sugar-soaping her skirting boards or throwing scrunched paper snowballs of unsatisfactory prose, she is writing a novel about John Ruskin and Rose La Touche. |
