But how do you measure celebrity? I’m fairly sure that if I went into Madame Tussaud’s then I would not see a model of Heaney or any other famous poet. Actually I have no idea who I would see in the establishment. Let’s take a look at the place.
She was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg and she was taught wax modelling whilst a child. She moved to Paris and created her first wax sculpture, of Voltaire, in 1777. At 17 she became art tutor to the sister of King Louis XVI. During the Revolution, she made models of many prominent victims.
For the 33 years she travelled Europe with her wax collection until she married François Tussaud in 1795, took his surname, and renamed her show as Madame Tussaud's. In 1802, she accepted an invitation from lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer Paul Philidor to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre, London.
 |
| Madame Tussaud (the original) |
Complaining that Philidor failed to promote her, Tussaud then decided to go into business alone. Unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic Wars, she travelled throughout Great Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection and made her home in London.
By 1835, Marie Tussaud had settled down in Baker Street and opened a museum. Londoners flocked to see the likes of Nelson and Sir Walter Scott, but the highlight was undoubtedly the Chamber of Horrors, where Tussaud displayed models of murderers.
Charles Dickens hailed the museum as one of London's most popular entertainments, writing in All the Year Round: "Madame Tussaud's is something more than an exhibition, it is an institution". A waxwork of Dickens appeared at the museum in 1873, three years after his death.
Some sculptures still exist that were made by Marie Tussaud herself. The gallery originally contained some 400 different figures, but fire damage in 1925 coupled with bombs during the Blitz on London in 1941, severely damaged most of such older models. The casts themselves have survived, allowing the historical waxworks to be remade, and these can be seen in the museum's history exhibit.
 |
| the Planetarium and Madame Tussaud's in Baker Street |
In 1978, Madame Tussaud’s was acquired by S. Pearson and Son and since then has been sold and resold a number of times in financial ways that completely baffle me.
It has also been massively expanded. There are exhibitions in twenty cities all around the world. Including Blackpool. There are about 80 models there compared to over 150 in London, mind you, the queues I’ve seen outside the Baker Street site are usually enormous.
Adult tickets to Madame Tussauds London start at £27 when booked online in advance, while walk-up tickets cost £39. To get the best deal, it is highly recommended to pre-book your timed entry, as same-day tickets are significantly more expensive and subject to availability.
There are actually a few poets scattered around those cities. Bertolt Brecht and Günter Grass at Madame Tussaud’s Berlin. Banjo Paterson & Henry Lawson in the history zone at Madame Tussauds Sydney. And, of course, William Shakespeare just about everywhere. But have you seen the model?
The poem "At Madame Tussaud's" by Canadian poet Frederick George Scott was published in 1888. It originally appeared as part of his early collection titled 'The Soul's Quest, and Other Poems '.
At Madame Tussaud's
I stood in that strange show, the other day,
On Baker Street, where all the famous men,
Fair dames, and murderers come to life again,
With clockwork breast and face of mimic clay,
To scare the young. Thrice in the long display,
Blundering, I thought wax flesh, then, with surprise
At being deceived, I turned with cautious eyes
And took for wax all those that thronged my way.
So in this age, methinks, when in the light
Of fuller knowledge, forms that men have reared
And worshipped turn to dust, too hasty youths,
Shunning the whirlpool jaws of credulous sight,
Rush towards a Scylla far more to be feared,
And take for shadows all too living truths.
I stood in that strange show, the other day,
On Baker Street, where all the famous men,
Fair dames, and murderers come to life again,
With clockwork breast and face of mimic clay,
To scare the young. Thrice in the long display,
Blundering, I thought wax flesh, then, with surprise
At being deceived, I turned with cautious eyes
And took for wax all those that thronged my way.
So in this age, methinks, when in the light
Of fuller knowledge, forms that men have reared
And worshipped turn to dust, too hasty youths,
Shunning the whirlpool jaws of credulous sight,
Rush towards a Scylla far more to be feared,
And take for shadows all too living truths.
Frederick George Scott
Thanks for reading, Terry Q.
0 comments:
Post a Comment