![]() Tussaud became a Swiss citizen, and learned the art of wax sculpting from Curtius, who had become quite skilled in the art from making anatomical models used in medical-school classes but also had a secret sideline creating erotic tableaux, or staged scenes, for private clients. Sources note that Tussaud was close to Curtius, called him “uncle,” and may have actually been his biological daughter. Her mother Anne raised her and took her to Bern, Switzerland, when she became housekeeper to a prominent physician in the city, Dr. She claimed, for example, that her father Joseph was a soldier during the Seven Years' War and died in that conflict before she was born more reliable sources determined that he was descended from a long line of public executioners in the city. Little is known of her family background, save for information culled from her 1838 volume of memoirs, which later biographers deemed to be riddled with deliberate falsehoods. The woman known throughout Britain as Madame Tussaud was born Anna Marie Gresholtz (or Grosholtz) on December 7, 1761, in Strasbourg, a city located in the Alsace region between Germany and France. Moreover, her blend of entertainment and information was a precursor of a cultural phenomenon existing today,” that of the celebrity icon. ![]() “She saw the sacramental nature of kingship in the fated Louis XVI give way to the domestic primness of Queen Victoria the mob transformed into the mass market. “Tussaud experienced sweeping social changes,” noted Marianne Brace, a writer for London's Independent on Sunday. ![]() Tussaud learned the art of creating lifelike figures out of wax during the French Revolution, claiming to have made her first ones directly from the heads of the recently guillotined. German wax modeler Marie Tussaud (1761-1850) founded the famous London museum that bears her name early in the 1830s, and it remains one of the city's most popular tourist attractions nearly two centuries later.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |