Book of Days Tales

Happy birthday  (1761) to Marie Tussaud Grosholtz, better known as Madame Tussaud, famed wax sculptor and founder of Madame Tussaud’s waxworks.  She was born in Strasbourg in France. Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius in Bern in Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modeling used in teaching anatomy originally. Curtius moved to Paris in 1765 to establish a cabinet de portraits en cire (wax portrait exhibition). In that year, he made a waxwork of Louis XV’s last mistress, Madame du Barry, a cast that is the oldest work currently on display. A year later, Tussaud and her mother joined Curtius in Paris. The first exhibition of Curtius’ waxworks was shown in 1770 and attracted a large crowd.

It was Curtius who taught Tussaud the art of wax modeling. She showed talent for the technique and began working for him as an artist. In 1777, she created her first wax figure, that of Voltaire.  From 1780 until the Revolution in 1789, Tussaud created many of her most famous portraits of celebrities such as  Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. At the same time, she remained on good terms with the French royal family. Tussaud was then employed to make death masks of the victims of the guillotine, including some 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. Subsequently she moved to London and opened her famous exhibition hall on Baker Street.

It may surprise you to learn that wax has a culinary use.  It is often added to chocolate because it creates a glossy sheen and prevents chocolate coatings from melting as quickly in hot weather.  I have never done this so I nicked a recipe from here:

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/nh04e8v1/ricks-favorite-maple-walnut-cream-chocolates.html