![waxworks museums waxworks museums](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j4R40Kln90Y/XzGZXzmkZKI/AAAAAAAACpk/uAQwwr8FbYA5uwgLXLqNNpfT4GX39-rWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_0978B.jpg)
This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. This blurred distinction between entertainment and information was exemplified by Sohier's successor, Max Kreitmayer, a medical modeller by training, who acquired the Melbourne business in 1870. Taking Madame Tussaud’s as a model, Madame Sohier's Waxworks Exhibition featured the usual, illustrious subjects – monarchs, military heroes and the like – as well as a 'Criminals Room' containing lurid effigies of infamous offenders, their waxen likenesses often being based on death masks.Īlthough these displays overtly appealed to predilections for scandal or titillation, waxworks proprietors often justified their inclusion by claiming that they provided a means of instruction and moral improvement. She later opened a business in Sydney and toured elements of her collection to Tasmania during the 1860s.
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In Melbourne, wax modeller Ellen Williams opened a waxworks at the theatre end of Bourke Street in 1858, operating in tandem with the 'Phrenological Museum' run by her companion, Philemon Sohier, whom she married in 1859. Waxworks were among the various types of entertainment venue to emerge in Australian cities in the mid-19th century.