That’s because shortly after Madame Tussauds modeled Voltaire and other late 18th century celebs in wax, it was also done right here in our town.
The artist’s name was Reuben Moulthrop, and on “This Day In New Haven History,” Sept. 11, 1793, Moulthrop, a self-taught East Haven-born artist, was advertising his wax figures on exhibition.
The idea was to “take you there:” wax was easy to mold and much quicker than hard materials. Moulthrop’s tableaux on this day included “a striking likeness of the King of France in the act of losing his head under the guillotine, preferring every circumstance which can give to the eye of the spectator a realizing view of that momentous interesting event.”
To listen to the New Haven Museum’s Jason Bischoff-Wurstle and yours truly discuss Moulthrop, whose paintings — though not his wax works — hang both at places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the New Haven Museum, just click on the audio above, or find it in iTunes or any podcast app under “WNHH Community Radio.”
