Anna Maria Tussaud was born in
Strasbourg on 1 December 1761; her father, a soldier named Joseph Grosholtz, was killed in the
Seven Years' War just two months before Marie was born. Her mother, Anne-Marie Walder, took her to
Bern where she moved to work as a housekeeper for Dr.
Philippe Curtius (1741–1794). There she took the
Swiss
nationality. Curtius was a physician, and was skilled in wax modelling,
which he used to illustrate anatomy. Later, he started to do portraits.
Tussaud called him uncle. Curtius moved to
Paris in 1765, starting work to set up a
cabinet de cire (wax exhibition). In that year he made a waxwork of
Louis XV's last mistress,
Madame du Barry, a cast of which is the oldest work currently on display. In 1767, Tussaud and her mother joined Curtius and also moved to
Paris. The first exhibition of Curtius' waxworks was shown in 1770, and attracted a big crowd. In 1776, the exhibition moved to the
Palais Royal and, in 1782, Curtius opened a second exhibit, the
Caverne des Grands Voleurs, a precursor to the later
chamber of horrors, on
Boulevard du Temple.
From 1780 to the Revolution in 1789, she claimed in later years to have been employed to teach
votive making to
Élisabeth the sister of
Louis XVI.
In her memoirs she claimed that in this capacity she was frequently
privy to private conversations between the princess and her brother and
members of his court, and that members of the royal family were so
pleased with her work that, on their invitation, she lived at
Versailles.
In
Paris, Tussaud became involved in the
French Revolution and met many of its important figures, including
Napoleon Bonaparte and
Robespierre.
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.
Tussaud was arrested during the
Reign of Terror together with
Joséphine de Beauharnais; her head was shaved in preparation for execution by
guillotine. But thanks to
Collot d'Herbois's support for Curtius and his household, she was released.
Tussaud was employed to make
death masks of the victims of the guillotine. Madame Tussaud made death masks of the revolution's most infamous dead such as
Louis XVI,
Marie Antoinette,
Marat, and
Robespierre.
Her death masks were held up as revolutionary flags and paraded through
the streets of Paris. Soon, Madame Tussaud was searching through
sanitaries collecting the most illustrious heads she could find.
When Curtius died in 1794, he left his collection of wax works to Marie. In 1795, she married
François Tussaud. They had two children, Joseph and François.
In 1802, Marie went to
London together with Joseph, then four years old, her other son staying behind. 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 did not fare particularly well financially, with Philidor taking half of her profits.
As a result of the
Napoleonic Wars, she was unable to return to
France, so she traveled with her collection throughout
Great Britain and
Ireland. In 1821 or 1822, her other son, François, joined her. In 1835, she established her first permanent exhibition in
Baker Street, on the upper floor of the "
Baker Street Bazaar".
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.
Madame Tussaud's wax museum has now grown to become one of the major tourist attractions in London, and has expanded with branches in
Amsterdam,
Bangkok,
Hong Kong (Victoria Peak),
Las Vegas,
Shanghai,
Berlin,
Washington D.C.,
New York City, and
Hollywood.
