


Other famous people were added, including Lord Nelson and Sir Walter Scott. This part of the exhibition included victims of the French Revolution and newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. The name is often credited to a contributor to Punch in 1845, but Marie appears to have originated it herself, using it in advertising as early as 1843. One of the main attractions of her museum was the Chamber of Horrors. Poster for the Tussaud wax figure's exhibition, Baker Street, London 1835.īy 1835, Marie had settled down in Baker Street, London and opened a museum. This became Tussaud's first permanent home in 1836.
#MADAME TUSSAUDS WAX MUSUEM FACTS SERIES#
From 1831, she took a series of short leases on the upper floor of "Baker Street Bazaar" (on the west side of Baker Street, Dorset Street, and King Street), which later featured in the Druce-Portland case sequence of trials of 1898–1907. She was unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic Wars, so she traveled throughout Great Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection. She did not fare particularly well financially, with Philidor taking half of her profits. In 1802, she accepted an invitation from Paul Philidor, a magic lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer, to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre, London. She married Francois Tussaud in 1795, and the show acquired a new name: Madame Tussaud's. She inherited the doctor's vast collection of wax models following his death in 1794, and spent the next 33 years travelling around Europe. During the Revolution, she modelled many prominent victims. Other famous people whom she modelled included Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she was imprisoned for three months awaiting execution, but was released after the intervention of an influential friend. At the age of 17 she became the art tutor to King Louis XVI of France's sister, Madame Elizabeth, at the Palace of Versailles. Tussaud created her first wax sculpture in 1777 of Voltaire.
