Madame Tussaud

Madame Tussaud
Author: Pamela Pilbeam
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2006-08-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781852855116

Tussaud's catered for the public's fascination with monarchy, whether Henry VIII and his wives or Queen Victoria, as well as for their love of history, acting as an accessible and enjoyable museum. This work looks at Madame Tussaud herself and her exhibition as part of the wider history of wax modelling and of popular entertainment.

Madame Tussaud

Madame Tussaud
Author: Geri Walton
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2019-02-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1526734095

A “meticulously researched and deftly written biography” of the woman behind the famed wax museums, and their origins in the era of the French Revolution (Midwest Book Review). Madame Marie Tussaud is known worldwide for the chain of wax museums she started over two hundred years ago. Less known is that her original wax models were often of the famous and infamous people she personally knew during and after the French Revolution. These were people like Voltaire, Robespierre, and Napoleon—people who changed the world. Even more, the wax figures were depicted in scenes drawn from the horrors she experienced during the reign of terror in Paris during her early adult years. This book shows how the traumatic and cataclysmic experiences of Madame Tussaud’s early life became part of her legacy. She created a succession of scenes in wax, telling events as she personally experienced them. Her wax sculptures were visceral. She made them herself, at times from the living person’s head and at other times from the recently guillotined head of a former houseguest. As a result, people were drawn to her wax displays because they were the most intense way of experiencing those events themselves. This is the story not only of a unique artist, but of how one of history’s bloodiest events influenced her life and work.

Without Having Seen the Queen

Without Having Seen the Queen
Author: Heinrich Schliemann
Publisher: Sidestone Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9088900876

Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), a shrewd trader and later in life one of the best known archaeologists of the 19th century, made many travels around the world. He recorded his experiences in several diaries. This publication is a transcription and translation of Schliemann's first travel diary: his European journey in the winter of 1846/47. This journey was his first as a commercial trader and through the diary he kept we get to know Heinrich Schliemann more as a tourist and human being than as a trader. From his new residence in Moscow he travelled to London and Paris and via Berlin back to St. Petersburg. He writes with admiration and amazement about buildings and the emerging industrialization, while indirectly he offers us a glimpse of the poverty and filthiness of that time. He describes his visits to amongst others the theatre, the British Museum, the Champs Elysées, and the Louvre. Besides the many pleasant experiences, he also mentions negative aspects such as the theft of his hat and the seasickness that plagued him during every one of his sea voyages. The original diary was written in English and French and for a small part in Italian. "Without having seen the Queen" comprises an introduction to the diary, a transcription of the diary, and a full English translation with annotations. This publication unlocks Schliemann's first travelogue and presents a unique view of his life before rising to fame as the discoverer of Troy.

Ephemeral Bodies

Ephemeral Bodies
Author: Julius Ritter von Schlosser
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2008
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780892368778

The critical history of wax is fraught with gaps and controversies. These eight essays explore wax reproductions of the body or body parts throughout history, and assess their conceptual ambiguity, material impermanence, and implications for the history of western art.