Madame Taussauds is a famous wax museum in London. It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Taussaud. Marie Taussauder (1761-1850) was born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg, France. Her mother was the housekeeper to Dr Philippe Curtius, a physician skilled at wax modelling. Dr Curtius taught Marie the art. In 1765, Curtius made a waxwork of Marie-Jeanne du Barrie, the mistress to King Louis XV. The cast of that mould is today the oldest work on current display. Dr Curtius held his first exhibition in 1770, to much interest. The exhibition then moved to the Palais Royal in Paris in 1776. A second located opened on Boulevard du Temple in 1782.
Madame Taussaud created her first wax figure, of Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, in 1777. Other famous people she modelled included Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. During the French Resolution, Madame Taussaud made death masks of prominent victims, searching through the corpses for the decapitated heads.
Madame Taussaud arrived in London in 1802, but due to the Franco-English war, was unable to return to France. So she took her exhibition across Great Britain and Ireland. She had her first permanent display at Baker Street in 1835. The visitors particularly enjoyed the Chamber of Horror, with exhibiton of French Revolution victims as well as figures of murderers and other criminals. Other famous people were soon added to the exhibition, including Horatio Nelson and Sir Walter Scott.
Some of the models made by Madame Taussaud herself are still on display. In 1842, she did a wax model of herself. This is on display at the entrance of the museum.
The wax museum Madame Taussauds (written without the apostrophe) gained so much popularity that it became a major tourist attraction in London. Branches of Madame Taussauds were also set up in Amsterdam, Las Vegas, New York City, Hong Kong and Shanghai, with new branches to be opened in Hong Kong and London.
How to get there
Nearest Tube Station: Bakers Street (two-minute walking distance)
Buses: No. 13, 27, 74, 82, 139 and 274
Opening Hours: 9:30am - 5:30pm (last entry is at 5:30pm)
Tickets
Flexi Tickets, valid for 7 days, are priced at £27.50 (adults) and £23.50 (children). If you arrive and buy on the spot, the tickets are priced at £25.00 (adults) and £21 (children). There are also discounted tickets, called Fast Track Tickets, that can only be purchased online, for £22.50 (adults) and £18.90 (children). For details, visit the Madame Tussauds website.
What to see
Without doubt, the wax figures of celebrities and political figures are the main draw of Madame Tussauds. Part of the fun is in quickly identifying the figures and determining how true they appear against the real thing.
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Madame Tussauds
Author: Citizen59 (GFDL)
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