Museums and Mass Spectacle: The Musee Grevin as a Monument to Modern Life

Abstract

In 1887 theater critic and Parisian man-about-town Jules Lemaitre described a detour he took, during his evening stroll on the boulevards, into the Musee Grevin order to review our glories, to recollect the year's remarkable accomplishments. ' He was quick to add that the world reproduced inside the Musee Grevin was authentic, because in this museum, as in his own world, is wax and all will melt, sooner or later. A clear expression of the futility of objects.2 One can hardly imagine most museums as ephemeral years-in-review or as institutions that inspire their visitors to remark upon the futility of objects. But, of course, this was no ordinary museum. On June 5, 1882, the Musee Grevin, a lavish wax museum, opened in the heart of modern Paris on the boulevard Montmartre, next to the Passage Jouffroy and across the street from the Theatre des Varietes and the Passage des Panoramas. day after its opening the popular Paris daily, the PetitJournal, heralded, The Musee Grevin's success is guaranteed,3 and another newspaper noted, The crowd presses morning and night to see the display.4 In its first year, the Musee Grevin received nearly a half a