San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-15
WHAT WAX WORKS COST.
They Range in Price All the Way from So
for a Dummy to S15,O 900 for a Pope.


for a Dummy to SIS, ZOO for a Pope.
"Oh, yes" said Mr.. Louis Tussaud, Il
think can tell you all about wax works
how they are made, dressed, and what they
cost. First of all you must get your sub
ject. This may be from a series of good
portraits, or the person represented may
give you sitting, or in the case of crimi-
nails you can go into court, and in some
cases have been permitted to stand among
the reporters while the condemned man
was being led to the scaffold.
"The best beeswax is used for the faces,
neck, arms and hands, which costs IS. Cd.
a pound, and it takes twenty pounds to
model mans face. while a womans needs
thirty pounds, as the neck and shoulders
have to be shown. Having got your face
you model it in clay, just as a sculptor,
with the hair included. Then you take
away the tresses of the clay, and make a
model of the exact shape of the back of
the head. The molder then takes it in
hand. After one or two stages each part
of the face is modelled, just like so many
pieces in puzzle, and shortly after the
cast is ready TO have the wax poured in.
One hour elapses, when you pour out the
aenter, leaving the head hollow, and at the
expiration of another hour your face is
complete.
each single hair is put in separately,
though when wigs are used they often cost
as much as G5 each. The eyes inserted are
surgical optics, and cost a guinea pair
The body is of composition, and in order
to get the outer garments to fit properly
every figure must have a complete suit of
Undertaking. A figure costs on the aver
age about el00, but in many cases much
more.
For instance, court dresses cost from
ESQ to $500 each. Henry VIII has been
fitted out in a suit of original armor cost
ing $500. A group depicting a scene at
the Vatican with the pope cost $4,000, and
George III in his jubilee robes would run
into $780,
"Clothing is important. When the model
of her majesty in her dress as worn on the
day of her jubilee was prepared the queen
lent the very things she wore on that day,
so that everything could be made exactly
as the original. As to the clothes of Grim
inals, have known over thousand
pounds to be paid for them, but nowadays
it is not possible to get them. In one in
stance-that of I4efrOy-the very collar he
wore, with his name torn out, so that his
washerwoman should not see it, was OBJ
tanned
''It is not generally known that the cele-
brated picture by Sir George Hayter of the
Duke of Wellington standing beside the
body of Napoleon as he lay on his bed was
in reality the duke standing by wax
model of the French emperor. The duke
took a great interest in waxworks, and
would often visit the exhibition of old
Nine. Tussaud when she was alive, stand
ing at the bedside of the representation of
Napoleon. and always with his head I'M
covered
"The bosom ola sleeping beauty is made
to heave by clockwork placed inside, while
the roaring Of the lions in the group of
Daniel in the Lions Den,' so popular in
country fairs, is done with a trumpet. The
country 'waXworks,' to speak paradox
ically, are not wax at all, butare in reality
composition, brown paper and plaster.
They cost about 60 apiece, and by chang
ing dress and Il wig will be made to repre-
sent anybody between an Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of Lon
don. '"-London Tit-Bits.