Well, it is not the kind in your ears. No. This wax is very different.
It is the wax of Madame Tussaud, and this is her birthday. You can’t hold a candle to her, I’ll tell you. Born December 7, 1761, in Strasbourg, France, her real name is Anne-Marie Grosholtz. She never knew her father, a man named Joseph Grosholtz, as he was killed in the Seven Years War, just a couple of months before she was born. So her mother was left to fend for the family.
When little Marie was six years old, her mother, named Anne-Marie Walder, took the family to Bern, Switzerland, where they moved into a local doctor’s home. The record didn’t say how they knew this doctor, Philippe Curtius, but the mother, Anne-Marie, worked there as a housekeeper. Maybe that was the entire reason for the arrangement. Maybe.
And this would be the place where her interest in wax modeling began. It always interests me — those things that interest others. Like quilting, or ham radios, or pottery. In this case, full-body renditions of people in wax. It seems like quite a thing to choose as either a hobby or a life pursuit. That was the way with Marie Grosholtz, though.
So back to Bern and Dr. Curtius. Marie called him her uncle, and they were close. He was skilled in wax modeling, initially using wax to create demonstrations in anatomy. But later, he began using wax for portraitures, and he held quite a talent for this. He moved to Paris around 1770 and established a “wax portraiture firm.” After he established himself in Paris, little Marie and her mother joined him. For that entire decade, he was quite successful in his waxworks, showing to large crowds and holding exhibits.
As a sidebar here, I’m getting the notion that mother Anne-Marie may have been more than just a housekeeper for Dr. Curtius.
Anyway, Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modeling. She was quite talented too and began working for him as an artist. In 1777, she created her first wax figure, that of Voltaire. Marie created a big bunch of her most famous portraits of celebrities. Yes, a celebrity wax modeler. The a-list included our own Benjamin Franklin. Marie was even on the inside of the Royals, becoming friends with Louis XVI’s sister Elisabeth. Marie taught her how to make votives. Those are wax too.
And then came that pesky French Revolution. Around 1793, Marie Grosholtz was seen as a royal sympathizer. She was arrested during the Reign of Terror. They put her on the list — the chopping block list. Her head was shaved in preparation for her execution by guillotine. They should have waxed her, instead.
But at the last minute, she was released, thanks to someone named Collot d’Herbois. He apparently knew Dr. Curtius and was able to wiggle her out of that tight squeeze. Marie was then employed to make death masks, and whole-body casts of the revolution’s famous victims, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and many others.
The good Dr. Curtius died in 1794, and he left his entire collection of waxworks to his “niece” Marie. One year later, she married François Tussaud, a civil engineer. The couple had three children: a daughter who died after birth and two sons, Joseph and François.
From there, Tussaud went to London. She was trying to make her way with exhibitions of her waxworks. Things didn’t go so great financially, so she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1803. Then back to the British Isles. She exhibited for 33 years before finding a permanent museum on Baker Street. She died in her sleep in London on April 16, 1850, at the age of 88.
Now her museums are all over the world. I went to the one in San Francisco a long time ago. We wondered if the figures were “entirely” accurate or if they stopped at the neck.
Wax on. Wax off.
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“Stay true to yourself. An original is worth more than a copy.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun
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“It’s better to be individual than a clone of someone else.”
― Fennel Hudson
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“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”
― Eric Hoffer
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I can only wonder where she got all that wax.
