Madame Tussauds is the name of the wax museum founded in 1835 in London by Marie Tussaud. There are museums Madame Tussauds in several cities of the world: Berlin, Amsterdam, Vienna, Las Vegas, New York, Hollywood, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo, etc.
Marie Tussaud was working in Bern as a maid for a doctor, Philippe Curtius, who had become an artist, woodcarver. He took the girl on his wing and showed her how to shape the wax sculpture. He was called in France to make a portrait of Marie-Jeanne du Barry, mistress of Louis XV in 1765. In 1767 the doctor brought Mary and his mother and employed her to work in his many achievements in wax. In 1770 he made his first show and has had so much success that in 1776 the exhibition moved to the Royal Palace. In 1782, he opened a second exhibition called the “Cave of the Great Thieves’ on the Boulevard du Temple; it was the precursor to ‘The chamber of horrors’. Marie Grosholtz achieves its figures from 1777 with that of Voltaire followed by those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin but in the French Revolution, she was sentenced to the guillotine for its relations with the nobility. Pardoned because of her talent, she used to carry out the death masks of revolutionaries murdered and decapitated. On the death of Curtius, Mary is the heir to his collection of wax figures. In 1795, she married François Tussaud and had 2 children. She went with his eldest son (4 years) in England to present her collection but because of the War of the Third Coalition, she remained blocked in England and continued her road shows throughout Great Britain and Ireland. In 1835 she opened the Baker Street Bazaar (on Baker Street in London) whose main attraction iwas the Chamber of Horrors, which had two parts the victims of the French Revolution and the murderers. In 1842, Marie performs a self-portrait that is still presented at the museum entrance and died in 1850 at the age of 88. In 1884 the museum moved to its current location on Marylebone Road. In 1926, the company Tussauds Group was founded to manage Madame Tussauds. The museum is a major tourist attraction in London.
Tips
You can purchase the admission ticket to the museum on line, taking advantage of combining it with other attractions.
Access is allowed by time slot, so if you have already purchased your ticket, go straight to the door to enter the time of your access. Usually you have to wait a bit but you can walk around and come on your specified time and you’ll enter directly without the need to queue.
If you are visiting with the family, there is a family ticket that serves access for 2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult and 3 children, at reduced prices. In the case you bought the family access on line, you can choose the time of entry. Note that at age 16, the person is considered adult.
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