Right here, on this quiet street in St John’s Wood, stands a testament to a woman who brought the world to life, in wax. This is the Madame Tussaud Blue plaque. Marie Grosholtz, later known as Madame Tussaud, was a French artist known for her wax sculptures and the wax museum she founded in London. She was born in Strasbourg, France, but her family later moved to Bern, Switzerland. Marie’s mother worked for a physician named Philippe Curtius, who taught her the art of wax modelling. In 1777, Marie created her first wax figure, of Voltaire.
She lived in Paris during the French Revolution, where she made death masks of its famous victims. Although Marie was imprisoned for three months, she was subsequently released. She inherited Curtius’s vast collection of wax models following his death in 1794. She later travelled around Europe with a touring show from the collection and eventually settled in London. In the late 1830s, she lived at this very location, where she established her first permanent museum. Marie’s famous wax museum is still a major tourist attraction, and her legacy lives on.