Musee Grevin description and photos - France: Paris (Topic)

Musee Grevin description and photos - France: Paris. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. Title in English - Musee Grevin.

Photo and description

The Musee Grevin is a wax museum on Boulevard Montmartre, the most famous in the world after Madame Tussauds.

Arthur Meyer came up with the idea of creating a museum in 1881 year. Meyer is an interesting figure in the history of France in the 19th century. The rabbi's grandson, a boy from a modest Jewish family, became a royalist, Catholic, anti-Dreyfusar, one of the key characters in the Third French Republic. He fought a duel, fought for the return of the monarchy, owned the bourgeois newspaper Le Gaulois and opened a wax museum. It was the newspaper that gave him the idea of the museum - Meyer decided that readers would be interested to see what those who write about on the front page every day look like. (The printing equipment of the time did not yet allow printing photographs.)

Meyer invited Alfred Grevin to bring the idea to life. Caricaturist, sculptor and theatrical costume designer Grevin took up waxing. Eventually the museum began to bear his name. The institution opened its doors in 1882 - and it was a success! In 1883, the famous investor Thomas Gabriel invested money in the museum, which significantly helped to expand it, and also enriched the interiors with new valuable decorations. This is how the Grevin Theater and the Palace of Mirages appeared (a hall where a show is shown with the help of a system of mirrors, as in a kaleidoscope; entertainment was invented for the 1900 World Exhibition).

Now the museum continues the work of the three founding fathers - shows public faces of celebrities. Surprisingly, in the age of the Internet, people enjoy looking at wax figures and taking pictures with them. In ten pavilions of the museum there are about 500 figures depicting famous people and fictional characters: Mozart, Aznavour, Rostropovich, Picasso, Napoleon, Nostradamus, Einstein, Esmeralda, Lara Croft, Spider-Man ... Part of the exhibition presents the key moments of French history: the death of Roland, the burning of Joan of Arc, the murder of Marat, and similar dramatic scenes. It is said that one can confuse a visitor with a wax figure, but this is a very dubious statement. Although making wax mannequins is a laborious and time-consuming process, they do not look alive.

Topic: Musee Grevin description and photos - France: Paris.