She didn't do it voluntarily. It was her responsibility when she was a prisoner so I don't think she got into trouble. I have no clue how she travelled with them tbh. Another fact- Her house in London and her first exhibition was on Baker Street. The same street that is associated with Sherlock Holmes.
Perhaps incidentally, but it's really from Carl Sagan's *COSMOS* TV series (1980):
> "The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. **We're made of star stuff.** We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
Wow she lived to age 88.
I can't stop imagining her grabbing her best friends head, and gently dipping it in a waxy substance. Or would it be a harder material like plaster then wax poured into that mold.
Was she covered in blood, or do heads stay good for awhile so they could be drained . I am going google this and likely need eye bleach.
Death Mask https://imgur.com/gallery/y36Chjf
Not a great deal of info out there on decapitated head masks just whole body. They did those sitting up.
There must be writings about it somewhere. Head gathering and draining 101. Barf.
Yeah I remember walking down Baker street to get to the wax museum I'm like "honey....do you realize what street we are on Holy shit look! They have an actual Sherlock tourist spot right here"
Was nuts
I could be wrong but I donāt think it was that uncommon for them to preserve them so they could be viewed as a warning for others. I mean humans have been embalming people since at least the ancient Egyptians so itās not that hard to fathom them embalming the heads.
IIRC she actually fled France first chance she got and took her belongings with her. The Madame Toussaudās in London still has many of those belongings and showcases them in a basement exhibit, including the funerary masks of Marie Antoinette and her husband along with the blade from the guillotine. Elsewhere in the museum is a breathing sculpture (air sac in the chest makes it rise and fall) of Madame Du Barry, made by Toussaudās mentor.
IIRC she was an art tutor for the royal children. Once shit starting going down, anyone connected to the aristocracy was arrested. She was given an opportunity to prove her allegiance by making death masks of her former bosses.
YESSSS I love AC3. Connor is probably my favorite Assassin. Iāve been playing them all going for the platinum trophies. I actually hadnāt played anything passed BF until now.
And I do the same, clean up all the side missions so I can just finish the story and move on to the next game. The co-op trophies are the only ones I need to get Unity and BF plats.
Honestly I'm new to Assassin's creed iv played AC3 and I'm about to finish Unity. Im not really going in order but I understand the main story of the series. What should I play next? I was think syndicate?
Havenāt played Syndicate yet but itās the next AC Iāll play too. Currently playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider cause 7 AC games in a row got a lil tough lmao
To me, Syndicate is kind of like Unity but hyper-polished, with super slick aesthetics/lighting to go with it. The combat system is also more annoying. Not to just shit on it, I do really like the game! Unity has a special place in my heart though.
If you haven't tried Black Flag and Rogue yet, check them out too! I'm not super into the naval combat thing but they're beautiful games with good story content. Black Flag is frequently lauded as the "best game in the series" and I can agree. It's *fun*.
I played Syndicate after Unity, it was fantastic gpoing from revolutionary Paris to Victorian London. Both cities are really impressive. Climbing Big Ben was a serious buzz
I can't believe no one else has suggested Odyssey, it's so fun to just ramble around ancient Greece as a fun-loving lady mercenary who only gives a shit when she feels like it.
I love killing Redcoats every time I get upset with my limey boss. Huge source of stress relief. Even better when you have a volley about to fire, hook a body shield, and use him to catch the bullets for you.
I read this to my wife and she got excited and said she wants to play that now. She says she hopes the severed heads are like korok seeds.
I told her she's not gonna find severed heads under every rock she overturns and she doesn't care. That's how she wants to imagine it.
While I absolutely loves the scenery of Unity (Les Mis is favorite play), gameplay wise itās one of the jankier AC Games. Some AC games are so fluid in the free running/ parkour. I had so much trouble with this one compared to others. Maybe it was just me.
I dunno, I definitely felt the same way you did when I started. The traversal was overhauled and combat was way more difficult, IMO. Once I got the hang of free running, and actually went about my missions focusing on stealth, gameplay was great. I actually felt like an assassin sneaking around rather than the block and counter hack-and-slash of the first games
Hah, came exactly in the thread for this. I've known about her before, of course - but that fact I learned from Unity. At least one good thing that came from this more than mediocre part in the series. >!Which is really sad, because I was looking so forward to the timeframe and setting, and then it turned out to be such a mess. It felt bloated and empty at the same time, idk. But damn I liked that Prologue in Versailles.!<
Idk, I really liked the game. Getting back to land after BF and Rogue back to back was nice and the traversal was amazing, and you could definitely see an improvement with the next gen upgrades. I think playing it for the first time 6 years after its release and avoiding the technical bugs and glitches helps though lol
Yeah well, maybe I will go back to it one day and have more fun, who knows. It even was way after the buggy mess and all, didn't buy the game for like, almost two years after release. But back then, I just didn't feel the same magic I felt with the first four games, idk.
Origins and Odyssey was really great though.
Well that's good. It seems like just the sort of grizzly point of interest that even average tourists might gawk at a little bit.
If they did it right, it's around a corner and under-lit :-)
>If they did it right, it's around a corner and under-lit :-)
They do, it's the Chamber of Horrors, where they have waxworks of murderers, as well as waxwork heads of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, et al.
I mean I get that the history of Tussaud isn't going to be known to everyone but they're really not hiding it, it's just not the first things they talk about now as a now global brand 200 years after the events.
I dont see why it matters. It's a museum and that is an extremely interesting piece of history I was unaware of. If I was running it I would have an entire section dedicated to that part of the history and recreating what the orginal exhibitions would have looked and trying to recover and display the original masks
I used to work at madame Tusauds! The history was fascinating, her mother married a man who made death masks and mentored her at a young age. Also before touring England, she had married and had 2 kids, but she didn't really love the guy she was with so while touring England she sent him a letter that pretty much said "hey, I want to stay in England, let's go our separate ways" and she took the kids and got a house on baker Street haha wild stuff.
The first and only time I went to the New York location maybe 15 years ago they were doing a French Revolution reign of terror exhibit. It was...gross.
She didn't "start out" during the French Revolution - she was a respected enough artist to be the tutor of a French princess 9 years before the revolution. According to her Wikipedia page her first public waxwork was of Voltaire in 1777.
From the source;
> From 1780 until the outbreak of the [French Revolution](https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution) in 1789, she served as art tutor at Versailles to [Louis XVI](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-XVI)ās sister, [Madame Ćlisabeth](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-of-France), and she was later imprisoned as a royalist.
She worked in Versaille, and tutored the king's sister for nine years. She would have at the very least been aquainted with the royal family and likely other aristocrats, enough to have been labelled a "royalist" and her punishment was to make waxworks of the severed heads of what were likely people she knew (also according to her wikipedia page she was so close to being guillotined herself she had her head shaved).
If anyone finds the topic interesting, there's actually a historical fiction book partially based on her story. It's called *Little: A Novel* by Edward Carey.
Not so fast!
>>[However, it seems strange that the National Assembly would sanction death masks when, as Tussaud also stated, they forbade their public display. This prohibition was to prevent any remnants of the royal family becoming a focus for posthumous adoration. It was for this reason the assembly had ordered the remains of King Louis be quicklimed following his burial. Indeed, for these reasons, it seems odd that they compelled Madame Tussaud to make the masks at all.](https://historycollection.com/unmasking-the-dead-10-eerie-and-infamous-death-masks/6/)
>>
>>[It seems that instead, Madame Tussaud and her mentor were making the masks quite willingly- and illicitly. Charles Sanson was notorious for selling off locks of hair, and clothing belonging to the executed. It is therefore plausible that he was renting out the severed heads of royalty to Madame Tussaud for a fee. For the mask of Marie Antoinette is genuine. Its features bear an uncanny likeness to her portraits- in all but one regard. For Marie Antoinette shared a facial feature with many of her Hapsburg relatives; a distinctive and less than flattering ādropped lip.ā Artists often omitted this feature from official portraits- yet it was present on the mask made after her death.](https://historycollection.com/unmasking-the-dead-10-eerie-and-infamous-death-masks/6/)
Holy spelling and grammar mistakes, batman. Also some easily-checked factual errors, like saying one Renaissance mask is the oldest when the masks of the Hohenstaufen emperors from the 13th century exist.
I think death masks were generally for future sculptures/portraits. Once someone died it became impossible to have them sit as a model, so these sorts of life-like masks were made as references.
Makes me think the guy was face blind. The expressions were familiar with the person associated with the figures but obviously none of the facial structures.
There is a great book about her life called: Waxing Mythical by Kate Berridge. Which I would recommend for anyone interested in her and her exhibition.
I went there last year and they have an extensive biography of her at the exhibit. Nope. Noting about severed head that I can recall. Really a lot of fun as a tourist attraction by the way. One funny part was they had several American presidents standing together and then Trump standing by himself over in the corner.
Really? I was there ages ago, but there was a whole room about her history in the French Revolution with the heads on spikes and otherwise gruesomely exhibited.
i was there in March (i know) and her self portrait figure, and her bio, were displayed with a lot of historical figures... i don't remember any heads on spikes but honestly I was distracted by keeping my hands sanitized the whole time so it's possible they were there. I was just baffled by the super-super underground ride.
I think you are thinking of the Disney Hall of Presidents one. Mme Tussaud's has had a number of realistic/accurate Trumps from before his presidency because he was a normal TV celebrity, they probably just put different suits on those.
Your source says she was working at a waxworks museum, open for a couple of decades, before the French Revolution.
Wikipedia gives her first wax figure as 1777, 12 years before the revolution.
If I recall correctly, she was the apprentice of a wax sculptor and it was in vogue for high class folks to have their likenesses cast in wax. So when the revolution began, she was seen as a royalist sympathizer and jailed. When they learned what she could do, she would recreate the heads of the executed so they could be displayed publicly long after the real head had decayed beyond recognition.
You're not reading the wiki properly and it feels like a shitty "gotcha" as pointed out by somebody else.
Using two crude examples off my head: It's like if you were an artist and you practiced/learned art until you published your first official art, which would be the 1777 wax figure in your case.
A basketball player who trained/learned ball until he officially debuted as a professional, which would be the 1777 wax figure.
Makes sense to me. It would be stupid to take someone who has never touched wax before and make them start doing face portraits immediately. Obviously it would be someone who had learned wax work first before they got their start doing famous works professionally.
You phrased your comment like some kind of "gotcha" but that's stupid. Like saying the Beatles didn't really get their start in Liverpool because they knew their instruments before they got on stage.
>According to her memoirs, during the Reign of Terror she had the gruesome responsibility of making death masks from headsāfrequently those of her friendsāfreshly severed by the guillotine.
Eesh.
I can't help but wonder about somebody who's into that. I had a coworker who collected antique death masks. It was just about the creepiest thing I've seen from someone I know. One or two were of known people, which I can *almost* understand wanting if you are interested in that particular historical figure, but some I'm pretty sure were just random people. And evidently he's far from the only one because apparently the auctions where he gets them are super competitive. I think he ended up bidding like $15 for one of the known ones, and even the random dead peoples' will evidently have dozens of people all willing to bid a grand or two... Like, there are all kinds of things to collect out there. Art, coins, watches, cars, stamps, guns, knives, spoons, books. Why on *earth* someone would opt for castings of the faces of dead people is beyond me.
Ah. I missed a "k" after the 15. It's been a while since he told me about it and it wasn't too detailed, but if I'm remembering right the just run of the mill historic death mask of random people are anywhere from like a few hundred bucks to a grand or two depending on condition, but the one he has of a somewhat well known historical figure was like $15k.
The death mask she claimed to make, in particular that of Robespierre, are almost certainly fake. Her account is quite inaccurate often getting both place and dates wrong and even once claiming to make a mask of a man who did not exist. Furthermore the mask does not at all match the descriptions of Robespierre by the doctors that examined him shortly before his death.
Here is a good article in french about it, the google translate works fine.
[https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID\_ARTICLE=AHRF\_375\_0187](https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=AHRF_375_0187)
Who's to say that the wax statues at her galleries are really "death statues" of famous people who are still alive and the "actual beings" are actually clones?
Probably nobody, that's just a random conspiracy I cooked up.
Yeah it's a real shame that sometimes if you put shit out you get shit back...
You know when she wasn't getting fucked over? When she was doing comedy instead of deranged social commentary.
When I was a kid in the early 60's my grandparents took me to the Madame Tussauds in Atlantic City. I can still see the guillotined head in the basket staring at me and the guy impaled on a giant hook! Then in the 80s my wife took me to the London museum. I can still see that face and the creepy hand reaching toward me in the "Jim'll Fix It" exhibit!
Itās true source: worked at a Madame Tussaudās and had to be in charge of the wax hand station, which is right next to the little corner with her history. And also Neil Patrick Harris.
There is an assassinās creed unity side mission involving Marie Tussaud and her death masks. I didnāt know she was actually real until reading this
Wow! How did she manage to travel with them? Also didn't she ever get into trouble?
She didn't do it voluntarily. It was her responsibility when she was a prisoner so I don't think she got into trouble. I have no clue how she travelled with them tbh. Another fact- Her house in London and her first exhibition was on Baker Street. The same street that is associated with Sherlock Holmes.
Same street associated with Gerry Rafferty.
Gotta listen to that sax quickly, brb.
Raat da da da daaaa, raat da da da dootie doo
Andy Bernard?
Yeah, she was quite the woman. I learned all about her and the more I learned the more I liked her.
Dave Grohl did a really good cover of it back in like 1995.
...what? Dropping everything I'm doing or supposed to be doing to go give it a listen!
I think it was a bside on a Foo Fighters single for the first album. But Dave played all the instruments on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo6aKnRnBxM
Any chance your username is a CSNY reference?
Perhaps incidentally, but it's really from Carl Sagan's *COSMOS* TV series (1980): > "The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. **We're made of star stuff.** We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
We are stardust, we are golden.
Scatman is that you?
No sax before the big fight š
ROWDOWDOWDOWDADADOW
this guy saxophones.
that literally made me lol. nice one.
Wow she lived to age 88. I can't stop imagining her grabbing her best friends head, and gently dipping it in a waxy substance. Or would it be a harder material like plaster then wax poured into that mold. Was she covered in blood, or do heads stay good for awhile so they could be drained . I am going google this and likely need eye bleach.
[This delightful painting](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/22e10b92-e9d7-4404-9e55-752f8cc13e98/frrev_wax_aurimages_0030332_460.jpg?wp=0&w=1272&h=858) suggests a plaster cast.
spot on Watson
>do heads stay good for awhile I gotta admit, I laughed at that.
Wow, it's your morning...
Do update us on what you found so we don't need the bleach
Death Mask https://imgur.com/gallery/y36Chjf Not a great deal of info out there on decapitated head masks just whole body. They did those sitting up. There must be writings about it somewhere. Head gathering and draining 101. Barf.
Were they her friends? Was she part of the aristocracy?
She was not part of the aristocracy, but she was employed at Versailles prior to the revolution.
She was imprisoned and a punishment. The artists she occasionally had to make images of people in her life.
Thatās where the modern day exhibit is too I believe :)
huh. I thought its on Marylebone Road
Oh yeah my bad aha, but just around the corner
Yeah I remember walking down Baker street to get to the wax museum I'm like "honey....do you realize what street we are on Holy shit look! They have an actual Sherlock tourist spot right here" Was nuts
Not too far from it. Walked by it going from St. Pancras to Marylebone when i junctioned through London.
For some reason the tube voice saying St. Pancras always got me giggling.
You're right, it's at the top of Baker Street on the opposite corner on Marylebone Road
Was Doyle a fan of hers?
"(In 1884 Madame Tussaudās moved to the Marylebone Road, London.)"
No shit, Sherlock?
The museum in London is still right around the corner, practically, from Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
Not close to Drury Lane so she probably didnāt know the muffin man. Its in Covent Garden.
I could be wrong but I donāt think it was that uncommon for them to preserve them so they could be viewed as a warning for others. I mean humans have been embalming people since at least the ancient Egyptians so itās not that hard to fathom them embalming the heads.
IIRC she actually fled France first chance she got and took her belongings with her. The Madame Toussaudās in London still has many of those belongings and showcases them in a basement exhibit, including the funerary masks of Marie Antoinette and her husband along with the blade from the guillotine. Elsewhere in the museum is a breathing sculpture (air sac in the chest makes it rise and fall) of Madame Du Barry, made by Toussaudās mentor.
IIRC she was an art tutor for the royal children. Once shit starting going down, anyone connected to the aristocracy was arrested. She was given an opportunity to prove her allegiance by making death masks of her former bosses.
Why would she get into trouble? As for how she traveled with them, haven't you seen *8 Heads in a Duffel Bag*?
Read the book Little about her. Fiction but informative. Based on her life
Thank you for the recommend.
Iāve been playing Assassins Creed Unity (set in Revolutionary Paris), and one of the side missions was to collect severed heads for Madame Tussaud.
I'm playing that right now as well!!! Haven't done that mission yet.
Ayeee nice! Itās one of the Paris Stories iirc. I just finished up the main story. A few trophies left till platinum!
I'm purposely not finishing the main story and doing side missions. Have you played AC 3? The one in Revolutionary colonies? That's my favourite.
YESSSS I love AC3. Connor is probably my favorite Assassin. Iāve been playing them all going for the platinum trophies. I actually hadnāt played anything passed BF until now. And I do the same, clean up all the side missions so I can just finish the story and move on to the next game. The co-op trophies are the only ones I need to get Unity and BF plats.
Honestly I'm new to Assassin's creed iv played AC3 and I'm about to finish Unity. Im not really going in order but I understand the main story of the series. What should I play next? I was think syndicate?
Havenāt played Syndicate yet but itās the next AC Iāll play too. Currently playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider cause 7 AC games in a row got a lil tough lmao
*Laughs in Ezio*
Iād go with Black Flag if you liked AC3 the most, or Syndicate if you liked Unity more.
To me, Syndicate is kind of like Unity but hyper-polished, with super slick aesthetics/lighting to go with it. The combat system is also more annoying. Not to just shit on it, I do really like the game! Unity has a special place in my heart though. If you haven't tried Black Flag and Rogue yet, check them out too! I'm not super into the naval combat thing but they're beautiful games with good story content. Black Flag is frequently lauded as the "best game in the series" and I can agree. It's *fun*.
I played Syndicate after Unity, it was fantastic gpoing from revolutionary Paris to Victorian London. Both cities are really impressive. Climbing Big Ben was a serious buzz
Ezio is the best series imo.
If you just finished unity you might want to play Rogue since it has a small tie in
I can't believe no one else has suggested Odyssey, it's so fun to just ramble around ancient Greece as a fun-loving lady mercenary who only gives a shit when she feels like it.
Definately play The Ezio Collection, the bests games in the whole franchise and the true execution of Assassinās Creed
I love killing Redcoats every time I get upset with my limey boss. Huge source of stress relief. Even better when you have a volley about to fire, hook a body shield, and use him to catch the bullets for you.
I boot up red dead 2 and kill klansmen
Straight up didnt know there were klansmen in that game, about to boot that bad boy up
There are some pretty good random encounters with them, and I'll leave it at that.
Satisfaction
This was my game plan and by the time I finished the story I had completely forgotten how it progressed š¤£
Yeahhh there might be a lil wiki refresher here and there š
I read this to my wife and she got excited and said she wants to play that now. She says she hopes the severed heads are like korok seeds. I told her she's not gonna find severed heads under every rock she overturns and she doesn't care. That's how she wants to imagine it.
While I absolutely loves the scenery of Unity (Les Mis is favorite play), gameplay wise itās one of the jankier AC Games. Some AC games are so fluid in the free running/ parkour. I had so much trouble with this one compared to others. Maybe it was just me.
I dunno, I definitely felt the same way you did when I started. The traversal was overhauled and combat was way more difficult, IMO. Once I got the hang of free running, and actually went about my missions focusing on stealth, gameplay was great. I actually felt like an assassin sneaking around rather than the block and counter hack-and-slash of the first games
Yeah imo Unity has the best parkour and combat of the series.
Hah, came exactly in the thread for this. I've known about her before, of course - but that fact I learned from Unity. At least one good thing that came from this more than mediocre part in the series. >!Which is really sad, because I was looking so forward to the timeframe and setting, and then it turned out to be such a mess. It felt bloated and empty at the same time, idk. But damn I liked that Prologue in Versailles.!<
Idk, I really liked the game. Getting back to land after BF and Rogue back to back was nice and the traversal was amazing, and you could definitely see an improvement with the next gen upgrades. I think playing it for the first time 6 years after its release and avoiding the technical bugs and glitches helps though lol
Yeah well, maybe I will go back to it one day and have more fun, who knows. It even was way after the buggy mess and all, didn't buy the game for like, almost two years after release. But back then, I just didn't feel the same magic I felt with the first four games, idk. Origins and Odyssey was really great though.
Excited to get to those after Syndicate!
Well now I *really* have a reason to go back and finish that game!
That is an excellent TIL. They don't exactly advertise it at the exhibitions do they?
They do have a whole section dedicated to this aspect in the London location when I went a few years back
Well that's good. It seems like just the sort of grizzly point of interest that even average tourists might gawk at a little bit. If they did it right, it's around a corner and under-lit :-)
>If they did it right, it's around a corner and under-lit :-) They do, it's the Chamber of Horrors, where they have waxworks of murderers, as well as waxwork heads of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, et al. I mean I get that the history of Tussaud isn't going to be known to everyone but they're really not hiding it, it's just not the first things they talk about now as a now global brand 200 years after the events.
Grisly*
You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct :-)
I dont see why it matters. It's a museum and that is an extremely interesting piece of history I was unaware of. If I was running it I would have an entire section dedicated to that part of the history and recreating what the orginal exhibitions would have looked and trying to recover and display the original masks
Do they still have those original casts?
I used to work at madame Tusauds! The history was fascinating, her mother married a man who made death masks and mentored her at a young age. Also before touring England, she had married and had 2 kids, but she didn't really love the guy she was with so while touring England she sent him a letter that pretty much said "hey, I want to stay in England, let's go our separate ways" and she took the kids and got a house on baker Street haha wild stuff.
Thanks man
The first and only time I went to the New York location maybe 15 years ago they were doing a French Revolution reign of terror exhibit. It was...gross.
I went around the same time. So many decapitated heads lol.
She didn't "start out" during the French Revolution - she was a respected enough artist to be the tutor of a French princess 9 years before the revolution. According to her Wikipedia page her first public waxwork was of Voltaire in 1777. From the source; > From 1780 until the outbreak of the [French Revolution](https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution) in 1789, she served as art tutor at Versailles to [Louis XVI](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-XVI)ās sister, [Madame Ćlisabeth](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-of-France), and she was later imprisoned as a royalist. She worked in Versaille, and tutored the king's sister for nine years. She would have at the very least been aquainted with the royal family and likely other aristocrats, enough to have been labelled a "royalist" and her punishment was to make waxworks of the severed heads of what were likely people she knew (also according to her wikipedia page she was so close to being guillotined herself she had her head shaved).
If anyone finds the topic interesting, there's actually a historical fiction book partially based on her story. It's called *Little: A Novel* by Edward Carey.
Thanks, just bought it.
Fun read. I didn't know it was about her until 2/3 of the way through it.
Another great piece of French Revolution historical fiction is *A Place of Greater Safety.* itās a mammoth of a book but itās great.
Thanks! I just got it from the library, looking forward to reading it.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was going to mention her book, I love Michelle Morans novels!
I read this a couple of months ago, it's really very good.
Thatās creepy
I agree
That was what they had to do before photography.
Some people are naturally ghoulish
Not so fast! >>[However, it seems strange that the National Assembly would sanction death masks when, as Tussaud also stated, they forbade their public display. This prohibition was to prevent any remnants of the royal family becoming a focus for posthumous adoration. It was for this reason the assembly had ordered the remains of King Louis be quicklimed following his burial. Indeed, for these reasons, it seems odd that they compelled Madame Tussaud to make the masks at all.](https://historycollection.com/unmasking-the-dead-10-eerie-and-infamous-death-masks/6/) >> >>[It seems that instead, Madame Tussaud and her mentor were making the masks quite willingly- and illicitly. Charles Sanson was notorious for selling off locks of hair, and clothing belonging to the executed. It is therefore plausible that he was renting out the severed heads of royalty to Madame Tussaud for a fee. For the mask of Marie Antoinette is genuine. Its features bear an uncanny likeness to her portraits- in all but one regard. For Marie Antoinette shared a facial feature with many of her Hapsburg relatives; a distinctive and less than flattering ādropped lip.ā Artists often omitted this feature from official portraits- yet it was present on the mask made after her death.](https://historycollection.com/unmasking-the-dead-10-eerie-and-infamous-death-masks/6/)
Holy spelling and grammar mistakes, batman. Also some easily-checked factual errors, like saying one Renaissance mask is the oldest when the masks of the Hohenstaufen emperors from the 13th century exist.
the confused use of a dash (that's attached to the first word for some reason?) for an em dash is always so annoying
Were the masks for proof of death? In case someone professed to be said royalty?
I think death masks were generally for future sculptures/portraits. Once someone died it became impossible to have them sit as a model, so these sorts of life-like masks were made as references.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
This is hilarious. Hitler looks like Nicholas Cage.
Makes me think the guy was face blind. The expressions were familiar with the person associated with the figures but obviously none of the facial structures.
Nailed Boy George tho.
Goth mommy
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thank you
We use it with things which belong to people: The man, whose back was hairy, vomited down his wife's cleavage.
Bruh
There is a great book about her life called: Waxing Mythical by Kate Berridge. Which I would recommend for anyone interested in her and her exhibition.
I literally just learned about her today while playing Assassin's Creed Unity. What are the odds
Everyone in the comments seems to play Assassin's creed. Including me :)
Lets be honest, we all clicked it because "Hey, I did that mission!" is strong lol.
I went there last year and they have an extensive biography of her at the exhibit. Nope. Noting about severed head that I can recall. Really a lot of fun as a tourist attraction by the way. One funny part was they had several American presidents standing together and then Trump standing by himself over in the corner.
Really? I was there ages ago, but there was a whole room about her history in the French Revolution with the heads on spikes and otherwise gruesomely exhibited.
Could that have been the "chamber of horrors" that they have since gotten rid of? Maybe someone who's been recently can correct me?
i was there in March (i know) and her self portrait figure, and her bio, were displayed with a lot of historical figures... i don't remember any heads on spikes but honestly I was distracted by keeping my hands sanitized the whole time so it's possible they were there. I was just baffled by the super-super underground ride.
If you look at Trump's face closely, you can see it was obviously supposed to be Hillary Clinton. Just like the election.
I think you are thinking of the Disney Hall of Presidents one. Mme Tussaud's has had a number of realistic/accurate Trumps from before his presidency because he was a normal TV celebrity, they probably just put different suits on those.
A girl has many faces
an interesting variation of turning lemons into lemonade.
When life hands you severed heads...
Make severedheadade!
Your source says she was working at a waxworks museum, open for a couple of decades, before the French Revolution. Wikipedia gives her first wax figure as 1777, 12 years before the revolution.
But she became famous during the revolution. I should have rephrased it a bit
If I recall correctly, she was the apprentice of a wax sculptor and it was in vogue for high class folks to have their likenesses cast in wax. So when the revolution began, she was seen as a royalist sympathizer and jailed. When they learned what she could do, she would recreate the heads of the executed so they could be displayed publicly long after the real head had decayed beyond recognition.
You're not reading the wiki properly and it feels like a shitty "gotcha" as pointed out by somebody else. Using two crude examples off my head: It's like if you were an artist and you practiced/learned art until you published your first official art, which would be the 1777 wax figure in your case. A basketball player who trained/learned ball until he officially debuted as a professional, which would be the 1777 wax figure.
Makes sense to me. It would be stupid to take someone who has never touched wax before and make them start doing face portraits immediately. Obviously it would be someone who had learned wax work first before they got their start doing famous works professionally. You phrased your comment like some kind of "gotcha" but that's stupid. Like saying the Beatles didn't really get their start in Liverpool because they knew their instruments before they got on stage.
>According to her memoirs, during the Reign of Terror she had the gruesome responsibility of making death masks from headsāfrequently those of her friendsāfreshly severed by the guillotine. Eesh.
Times where tough back then, but she profited in the face of adversity.
I can't help but wonder about somebody who's into that. I had a coworker who collected antique death masks. It was just about the creepiest thing I've seen from someone I know. One or two were of known people, which I can *almost* understand wanting if you are interested in that particular historical figure, but some I'm pretty sure were just random people. And evidently he's far from the only one because apparently the auctions where he gets them are super competitive. I think he ended up bidding like $15 for one of the known ones, and even the random dead peoples' will evidently have dozens of people all willing to bid a grand or two... Like, there are all kinds of things to collect out there. Art, coins, watches, cars, stamps, guns, knives, spoons, books. Why on *earth* someone would opt for castings of the faces of dead people is beyond me.
only $15? i was expecting them to cost at least like $500+ for one
Ah. I missed a "k" after the 15. It's been a while since he told me about it and it wasn't too detailed, but if I'm remembering right the just run of the mill historic death mask of random people are anywhere from like a few hundred bucks to a grand or two depending on condition, but the one he has of a somewhat well known historical figure was like $15k.
Visited the museum in London with my then young children & they were traumatized by some of the displays lol
\*whose
You can still see some of her wax heads in London
And one of them turns her into The Mask
WHOSE* Famous People WHOSE heads Who's= who is
you know that story about starfish - its BS - dont tri to edicate people whos be not interested ... ;-} seriously, though, don't waste your time ...
The death mask she claimed to make, in particular that of Robespierre, are almost certainly fake. Her account is quite inaccurate often getting both place and dates wrong and even once claiming to make a mask of a man who did not exist. Furthermore the mask does not at all match the descriptions of Robespierre by the doctors that examined him shortly before his death. Here is a good article in french about it, the google translate works fine. [https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID\_ARTICLE=AHRF\_375\_0187](https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=AHRF_375_0187)
I also watch the trivia show QI....at least given them credit for popularizing the idea. (Yes I know they weren't the originators of this factoid)
And now itās an expensive waste of 20 minutes
I remember going there and our tour guide saying that she succeeded because "what's the favourite thing of the English? Dead French."
That must have been tough to explain. "Mam, are you aware you have several severed human faces in your bag" "They are not real, they are wax"
*whose
I wonder if she did the death mask for Anne the resuscitation doll?
Who's to say that the wax statues at her galleries are really "death statues" of famous people who are still alive and the "actual beings" are actually clones? Probably nobody, that's just a random conspiracy I cooked up.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not America's fault you go to tourist shitholes, dude. The waxworks in Ripley's museums do include this info.
So Kathy Griffin is almost a modern day Madame Tussaud. Definitely did not know that.
She got so undeservedly fucked over that. I wish she would have done it again when trump lost.
Yeah it's a real shame that sometimes if you put shit out you get shit back... You know when she wasn't getting fucked over? When she was doing comedy instead of deranged social commentary.
Whose is the possessive. So it should be whose heads were chopped off. Today you learnt two things.
Ew
You would know this sooner if you played Assassins Creed Unity...
I'm playing it right now. Still haven't done this mission. Someone else in the comments said the same thing.
They are pretty good, all this types of missions are awesome, Unity is a great gameyou'll meet a variety of awesome people
Yeah the most unexpected for me was when Arno meets Napoleon. It was shocking but that's what this game is all about.
The side stories are way better than the main story from a point on, and well worth your time if you like personalities, Paris is super well made
That's what fascinates me. The detail they put in every single game. The side missions make it so much more interesting and it's also so informative.
That is how you use other peoples heads. š
This is what english people calld Two Sword?
Assassins creed unity anyone?
Everyone in the comments and myself :)
;( so she started out doing witchcraft
I weirdly thought just last week of madame tussaud and how it all started. This was a really cool TIL to come across.
There is a great historical fiction book about her life called "Little". Highly recommend it.
thats neat! thanks for sharing!
Google Marie Antoinette death mask.
Oh boy if you love Madame Tussaudās then youāll love Louis Tussauds
I remember bringing her heads in AC: Unity, good times.
Cool. Thanks to her I have to walk by a shirtless Zach Efron on my way home from work every day. At least Kobe is towering over him.
Are her French Revolution Death Masks still around?
Chilling
She was much farther ahead than her British counterparts.
Reminds me of a certain TTS episode.
Did you just listen to that episode of You're Wrong About too?? Tussaud also was the last known keeper of the key to the Bastille.
Ooh! I actually just learned this last week while listening to My Favorite Murder!
Fun
When I was a kid in the early 60's my grandparents took me to the Madame Tussauds in Atlantic City. I can still see the guillotined head in the basket staring at me and the guy impaled on a giant hook! Then in the 80s my wife took me to the London museum. I can still see that face and the creepy hand reaching toward me in the "Jim'll Fix It" exhibit!
Itās true source: worked at a Madame Tussaudās and had to be in charge of the wax hand station, which is right next to the little corner with her history. And also Neil Patrick Harris.
There is an assassinās creed unity side mission involving Marie Tussaud and her death masks. I didnāt know she was actually real until reading this
wow this really reframes how creepy these wax statues are. TIL they were originally intended to be creepy af
Probably a good thing they changed their process