Waxing Lyrical

Thu 6 December 2012

Waxing Lyrical

Filed under: #satscene —— Sylvia @ 22:37

On the 1st of December in 1761, Anna Maria Grosholtz was born in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, a physician and wax sculptor. It was he who realised that little “Marie” had a talent for wax modelling. After Dr Curtius died, he left his collections of wax figures to the now adult woman, whose wax forms were gaining recognition and respect. She married François Tussaud a year later in 1795 and changed the exhibition name to Madame Tussaud’s. When the marriage began to fail, she kept the exhibition name but took eldest son and her creations to Britain to find new fans for her work.

Madame Tussaud: and the History of Waxworks by Pamela Pilbeam

Running a touring company was extremely arduous. Madame Tussaud’s odyssey was extraordinary at the time, when almost no middle-class married women worked, and when travelling even a short distance was exhausting. Marie remained on the road for thirty-three years in total, visiting seventy-five different main towns and many smaller places. The packing and unpacking alone, without the travelling, model and costume making, would have been herculean tasks for a young person, but Marie set out when she was already middle-aged, with a tiny child, knowing no one and (when she began) speaking not a word of English. She was in her seventies when her touring days ended in 1835.

At the age of 74, Madame Tussaud set up her first permanent exhibition in Baker Street, London. Madame Tussaud’s wax museum is still one of the major tourist attractions in London.

On the 1st of December in 2012, extraordinary effort was put into taking great photographs to document the world on Saturday: