Grevin Wax Museum - 200 wax personalities at hand

Grevin Wax Museum: unique in Paris

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Grevin wax museum is a private wax museum located in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France, pas loin du Palais du Louvre. It gathers wax reproductions of famous people. In addition, part of the museum visit is the Grévin theater (theater) and the Palais des Mirages (attraction using the principle of optical illusion). The Hall of the Dome and the Hall of Columns have beautiful baroque decorations dating from 1882.

Meet the world's celebrities of yesterday and today

There are no less than two hundred wax figures ranging from Albert Einstein to Mahatma Gandhi through Michael Jackson or Alfred Hitchcock. Many scenes from the History of France are reconstructed here, such as the captivity of Louis XVI in the Temple or Joan of Arc at the stake. Meet all these personalities during a visit full of surprises in the middle of extraordinary thematic settings!

The Grévin wax museum, a unique and unmissable place in Paris, offers you the opportunity to pose alongside more than 200 characters who have made or are making history, from yesterday to today! Enjoy a fantastic experience, with family or friends, and leave with your own photo album that will be like no other!

Regularly, new personalities enter the Grevin museum.

Origin of wax museums in France

Until the seventeenth century, it was common after the death of a royal figure, to display a representation of his face in wax. Thus, the wax funeral mask of the French king Louis XIV by Antoine Benoist is famous. Benoist even made the "wax cabinet" fashionable by creating an exhibition presenting the entire direct entourage of Queen Maria Theresa.

Origin of the Grevin Wax Museum in France and the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in London

Around 1770, the Bernese Curtius was invited to Paris by the Prince of Conti, who authorized him to present an exhibition at the Palais-Royal: "the royal family at the Grand couvert in Versailles". He was helped by a young girl whom he considered his niece and who was none other than Marie Tussaud. During the French Revolution, she molded the dead faces of Marat, Robespierre, and the royal couple. After the death of her uncle and master, she moved in 1795 to London, where she established in 1835 the famous Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

The fatal 19th century for wax museums in France

In the nineteenth century, several Parisian wax museums tried in vain to succeed Curtius and match Madame Tussaud's museum.

In 1881, Arthur Meyer, the director of the daily newspaper Le Gaulois at the time, wanted his readers to be able to "put a face" on the personalities featured in his newspaper. He turned to the sculptor, caricaturist, and theatrical costume designer Alfred Grévin - who had created caricatures for his newspaper - to ask him to create sculptures of the personalities in the news.

On June 5, 1882, the Grevin Museum opened its doors and was an immediate success.

The evolution of the Grevin Wax Museum's offer

In March 1886, Émile Voisin, a merchant and manufacturer of magic devices, was asked to prepare the first prestidigitation sessions in the future Cabinet Fantastique of the Grevin Wax Museum. In 1892, the Cabinet Fantastique gave way to Emile Reynaud's Luminous Pantomimes, and the first public projection of a cartoon on a large screen, Pauvre Pierrot, took place on 28 October 1892.

In 1984, the theater opens its doors in the evening for daily programming, one-man-show (Pierre Desproges, Yves Lecoq, Christophe Alévêque, Anne Roumanoff, Marc Jolivet, Laurent Ruquier, Tom Novembre, Chantal Ladesou...), classical concerts produced by Philippe Maillard (Jordi Savall or Philippe Jaroussky...), plays followed one another until the Asterix group, which became Grévin & Cie, stopped this theatrical programming activity on December 31, 2000.

During your visit, original works to enjoy:

• The stage curtain is an original painting by the painter and poster artist Jules Chéret;
• The high relief The Clouds above the stage is the work of the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle.

Grevin Wax Museum can also be rented on an occasional basis. It has a capacity of 217 seats. Also, the entire Grévin Wax Museum can be booked in the evening for special events that can accommodate from 30 to 300 guests.