Marie Tussaud

Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling. She showed talent for the technique and began working for him as an artist. In 1777, she created her first wax figure, that of Voltaire.[6] From 1780 until the Revolution in 1789, Tussaud created many of her most famous portraits of celebrities such as those of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire.[7] During this period her memoirs claim she became employed to teach votive making to Élisabeth, the sister of Louis XVI. In her memoirs, she admitted to be privy to private conversations between the princess and her brother and members of his court. She also claimed that members of the royal family were so pleased with her work that she was invited to live at Versailles for nine years,[8] although no contemporary evidence exists to confirm her accounts.[9]

Poster for Tussaud wax figure exhibition in London, 1835

On 12 July 1789, wax heads of Jacques Necker and the duc d'Orléans made by Curtius were carried in a protest march two days before the attack on the Bastille.[7]

Tussaud was perceived as a royal sympathiser;[9] in the Reign of Terror she was arrested, along with Joséphine de Beauharnais, and her head was shaved in preparation for her execution by guillotine. She said she was released thanks to Collot d'Herbois' support for Curtius and his household.[3] Tussaud said she then was employed to make death masks and whole body casts of the revolution's famous victims, including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Princesse de Lamballe, Marat,[7] and Robespierre.[9]

When Curtius died in 1794, he left his collection of wax works to Tussaud. In 1795, she married François Tussaud, a civil engineer. The couple had three children: a daughter who died after birth and two sons, Joseph and François.[8]

In 1802, after the Treaty of Amiens, Tussaud went to London with her son Joseph, then four years old, to present her collection of portraits. She had accepted an invitation from Paul Philidor, a magic lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer, to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre. She did not fare particularly well financially, and left for Edinburgh in 1803.[10]

English Heritage blue plaque marking one of Tussaud's homes in the City of Westminster, London

As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Tussaud was unable to return to France so she travelled with her collection throughout the British Isles. In 1822, she reunited with her son François, who joined her in the family business. Her husband remained in France and the two never saw each other again.[9] In November 1825, her touring exhibition was in the Wisbech Georgian theatre (now the Angles Theatre), having already been at Yarmouth, Norwich, King's Lynn and Bury St Edmunds. Entrance was 1s.[11] In 1835, after 33 years touring Britain, she established her first permanent exhibition in Baker Street, on the upper floor of the "Baker Street Bazaar".[12] In 1838, she wrote her memoirs. In 1842, she made a self-portrait which is now on display at the entrance of her museum. Some of the sculptures done by Tussaud herself still exist.

She died in her sleep in London on 16 April 1850 at the age of 88. There is a memorial tablet to Madame Marie Tussaud on the right side of the nave of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, London.[13]