EncyclopediaTussaud, Marie
Tussaud, Marie (toosō', tüsō') [key], 1760–1850, Anglo-French modeler in wax, b. Strasbourg, France, as Marie Grosholtz or Grosholz. She learned her art from her uncle, Philippe Curtius, a proprietor of wax museums in Paris. Tussaud was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, and many heads of famous persons were brought to her for modeling. She inherited Curtius's collections in 1794. In 1802 she immigrated to England, where in London in 1835 she established a museum that remains a principal tourist attraction, now known as Madame Tussauds.
See J. T. Tussaud, The Romance of Madame Tussaud's (1920); S. P. Martin, I, Madame Tussaud (1957), a fictionalized account.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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