When Madame Tussauds' curious wax works came to Calcutta

Madame Tussauds' has announced that it will be opening its first museum in India at New Delhi by the end of 2017. This iconic two-century old institution will finally allow the enthusiasts in India to rub shoulders with their idols, well, at least with their lifelike wax forms. The addition of the popular Indian icons particularly from Bollywood has made Madame Tussaud’s endearing to the Indian audiences for quite sometime and certainly, a must visit for most traveling to London. But India’s connection to Marie Tussaud the woman who founded the eponymous institution or to be more specific, her curious wax works goes long back in history. The connection stretches back even before Tussaud settled in London and founded her celebrated museum in Marylebone. In this post, we will go back in time and explore this forgotten phase, when the precursor of the Madam Tussaud’s iconic exhibition flourished briefly in India.

The practice of public exhibition of wax figures goes back to the middle-ages. In Europe, lifelike wax figures or effigies of deceased members of the royal families were commonly paraded on royal funeral ceremonies. Following the Renaissance, these wax statues were put to use for more practical purposes. For a long time procuring corpses presented a perennial problem, for the students of medicine and anatomy. So, wax statues began to be used as an alternative of cadavers for teaching anatomy to the aspiring physicians. Philippe Curtius, a physician from Berne, became well-known for achieving perfection in creating such anatomical wax figures. Prince de Conte, a cousin of Louis XV, the French Emperor, while visiting Berne was so impressed with Curtius’models that he immediately offered to patronise Curtius if he decided to turn his talents to portraiture from medicine and sets up an exhibition in Paris. An offer that Curtius readily accepted and relocated to Paris. His first exhibition consisting of life-like wax figures of the celebrities of the day took place in 1770.

Philippe Curtius

Curtius was accompanied to Paris by his housekeeper and her daughter, Marie Gresholtz. Curtius, a bachelor, adopted the daughter of his housekeeper, who soon became an able assistant in Curtius’ exhibition. Curtius’ exhibition at Paris, titled Cabinet de Cire was initially open only to a few invited guests but the exhibition generated enough popular interest and it was soon opened to the public at the Palais Royale. In 1782, Curtius inaugurated a second exhibition at Boulevard du Temple. It was at Boulevard du Temple, that Curtius introduced the Caverne des grands voleurs or the Chamber of Horrors to his exhibition. The Chamber of Horrors, which initially exhibited lifelike figures of notorious criminals of the day, had remained a chief attraction of the Madame Tussaud’s ever since.

Curtius’ exhibition assumed a newer significance a few years later in 1789 when the revolution broke out in Paris. Curtius himself took part in the storming of the Bastille and at the close of the year was presented with an inscribed musket as recognition for being one of the Vainqueurs de la Bastille. The musket is still preserved at the Madame Tussaud’s. Curtius’ was also given the duty of ‘archiving’ the sacrifices made at the altar of the revolution from its initial phase. During the revolution, Curtius and young Mary were kept busy in creating wax models of the heads severed in the guillotine.

In 1793, the mistrust among the revolutionaries gave another turn to the French Revolution, A ‘reign of terror’ was launched as the enemies of revolutionaries were identified and hunted down, Philippe Curtius too fell out of favor, so did his cabinet of curious wax collection. With the business going slow, in 1794, Curtius sent a part of his collection to be exhibited in India under the care of Dominick Laurency, an Italian showman.  

Laurency targeted the English audiences of Calcutta and Madras.  The two major strongholds of the English East India Company were selected as venues for the exhibition. However, we do not have information about how the collection was transported for such long distance and how the wax models were protected from the tropical climate in India. The little information about the exhibitions that have survived is available to us from contemporary newspaper reports and Laurency’s advertisement of the event. The Calcutta Gazette suggests that exhibition opened in Calcutta during the festive season of December 1794. The Gazette though is silent about the venue of the exhibition and the duration of which the collection remained in the city. But we can be certain from the advertisement that appeared in Madras Gazette that, by the month of  August, the collection had reached the port of Madras. The advertisement suggested that how the exhibition was received with admiration in Europe and keeping in mind the audience, made particular mention of London in this regard. The advertisement also offers a detailed account of the what was on exhibit. Twenty wax models which formed part of Curtius’ Cabinet de Cire were exhibited here, These twenty wax models mostly included figures of the Ancien Régime, including the late French monarch Louis XVI, Dauphin, the prince, as well as the emperor’s brothers and duchesses. The monarch from other countries, such as Frederick the Prussian emperor, Joseph II, the German emperor and the Russian emperor were also part of the exhibition. The exhibition also did not miss out some of the leading lights of the French Revolution, like Count Mirabeau and ‘celebrated French authors’ like Voltaire and Rousseau. The Chambers of Horrors though did not form a part of the exhibition, there were other exhibits with links to the French Revolution, Alongside a scale model of the fort of Bastille there was an elaborate model depicting the beheading of Joseph Foulon the imperial finance minister on guillotine. The life likeness of the model with “blood seems to be streaming from the severed head and running on the ground” generated much interest among the viewers. Another attraction of the exhibition was the ‘Optic of Zaler’, an optical illusion showing sunrise over the capital cities of Europe. However, we do not know how long the exhibition was in India. Curtius though had already passed away in late 1794. Curtius’ Cabinet though was exhibited in his name for in Paris till 1800 by Marie Tussaud, who inherited the collection. The story of Curtius’ Cabinet de Cire, came to an end in 1802, when Marie, already separated from her husband, moved to London permanently.  

The Artist who campaigned for Animal Rights

If one walks down the footpath along the Writer's Building in Kolkata towards the church of St. Andrews, he or she will discover a little white monument at the edge of the footpath, just in front of a police outpost. Located in the heart of the administrative district of the city, this little monument was dedicated to a man named Colesworthy Grant. The plaque on the monument will inform the reader that, the monument was erected in the year 1881 in memory of a man who founded the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals but will say little more about the man who played a pioneering role for animal rights in this country.

Campaigns against cruelty to animals found prominence in Britain during the early decades of the 19th Century. These campaigns achieved some success through the efforts of Colonel Richard Martin, an Irish politician, who was instrumental in introducing a legislation against the cruel treatment of cattle. The act passed in 1822, was of the first pieces of animal rights legislation. Martin’s another lasting legacy was the foundation of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. The society, currently one of the largest of its kind in the world, made its way to India through the efforts of Colesworthy Grant.

One of Grant’s comrades at the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was Pyarichand Mitra, who penned a brief biography of Grant after his death. This biography by Pyarichand Mitra, who himself is credited with writing the first Bengali novel among other things, is our primary source of information on Grant. According to Mitra, Grant, who had both Scottish and Irish origins, came to Calcutta in 1832 at the age of nineteen. Grant joined his elder brother, who had an established business of clock-making and designing mathematical instruments in the city. The biography though offers very little information about Grant’s education and training. But we learn from the Indian Monthly Review that he was a self-taught artist and was soon making a name for himself from his lithographic portraits.

Grant’s sketches were published in a number of contemporary periodicals including the Indian Review, Calcutta Review, Calcutta Christian Observer and the India Sporting Review. These early works were mostly studies of prominent personalities of the city. Grant made a total of 169 such sketches, between 1838 to 1850. The sketch that we see below, is of James Prinsep, the man who rediscovered Emperor Ashoka by deciphering the Ashokan edicts. The likenesses of some of the important public figures of 19th Century Calcutta like Prinsep, have only survived in these sketches made by Colesworthy Grant. As was the custom of the colonial period, Grant also contributed in the ethnological study of the native castes and professional classes.  These studies were later published under the title of Oriental Heads.

James Prinsep's Lithographic Sketch

Grant’s‘ ability to offer vivid pictures of people and their customs was also to be found in his writings. This was evident in the accounts of the tours that he made to Rangoon (now Yangon, the capital of Myanmar) and to Mulnath, an Indigo factory in the present day district of Nadia in West Bengal. These travelogues were adorned with Grant’s sketches. Grant also wrote a narrative on Anglo-Indian Domestic life in the city of Calcutta. This particular work was gleaned from the letters that Grant wrote to his mother back home. The letters besides offering a more personal view on the domestic life of the Europeans in Calcutta, also reveal Grant's growing fondness for the city of Calcutta.

Elephant Palace, Amarapura

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Grant’s attachment to the city of Calcutta, first became apparent in his commitment for the Calcutta Mechanics Institution. The objective of this institution founded in 1839, was to impart training in ‘useful knowledge’. Grant, already an established artist took classes on drawing. The Calcutta Mechanics Institution despite the efforts of Grant and his elder brother among others, did not survive for long. However, two future Calcutta institutions had their roots in the Calcutta Mechanics Institution, namely the Bengal Engineering College (now the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science, and Technology, Shibpur) and the Government Art College. The Bengal Engineering when it was founded in 1857, initially operated from the premises of the Presidency College. Grant became the teacher of drawing at the Civil Engineering Department, a post that he held till his death in 1880. The respect and popularity that Grant earned as a teacher is evident from the memorial plaque that was installed by his students at the auditorium of the Bengal Engineering College.

Colesworthy Grant's Memorial Plaque at IISER, Shibpur

Colesworthy Grant’s artistic talent was also recognized in the other major educational institution of the city, the Calcutta Medical College. He was invited by Dr. F.J. Mouat, to be part of his ambitious project of compiling the bilingual anatomical atlas in English and Hindi. The anatomical drawings that went in the compilation were sketched by Colesworthy Grant.

Illustrations from Mouat's Anatomical Atlas

But when Grant passed away in 1880, it was his role as a crusader for animal rights, that was chiefly remembered. Mitra recalls in his biography that, how Grant was distressed with the way, “the cattle and horses were unmercifully used, and while they suffered, there was no one to plead for the alleviation of their suffering.” Grant’s efforts to systematize the campaigns for animal rights, materialized on 4th October 1861, when the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Calcutta branch was founded. The objectives of the Society included generation of public consciousness against cruelty to animals through publications and by reaching out to the educational institutions. The Society was also successful in introducing two legislations for animal rights, Act V and Act XV, “for prosecuting individuals guilty of inhumanity to animals.” The legacy of Colesworthy Grant can still be found alive in the city of Kolkata, as the hospital founded by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, continues to attend the sick and wounded animals to this day.

Calcutta Society for Prevention of cruelty to Animals Hospital at Bowbazar Street.

Patuatola Lane: Apu's mess and a forgotten pundit

Around June last year Criterion Collection launched the trailer of Apu Trilogy’s restored version, a process that involved more than thousand hours of manual work(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5zib042hEs). The trailer allowed many of us to have a glimpse Ray’s masterpiece in its original glory for the very first time. While going through such a film set in Calcutta, I have this habit of taking a shot in identifying the location. So when the trailer moved on to Aparajito, showing a visibly perplxed Apurba Kumar Ray trying to locate his mess in a narrow alley of the city, I decided to pause and take a better look. The lane looked familiar, and the pristine quality of the print also didn’t offer much trouble in reading the address of the bookshop behind Apu, which read Ramanath Mazumdar Street. Ramanath Mazumdar Street is a lane near College Square, that connects Bankim Chatterjee Street to Patuatola Lane.  However in the actual novel, we do not find any mention of Patuatola

Lane. Instead we are told that, Apu stayed in a mess at Panchanan Das-r goli (lane) near Amherst Street (now Raja Rammohan Ray Sarani). Though Panchanan Das-r goli is fictional, the locational detail that is provided in Aparajito fits with that of Patuatola Lane. Patuatola Lane, as the name indicates, derives its name from being the quarter of painters or Patuas, connects Surya Sen Street (formerly Mirzapur Street) with Mahatma Gandhi Road (formerly Harrison Road). This area being located between College para and Sealdah rail-station was dotted with a number of boarding houses or messes, catering to the migrant student community and also the office babus. A few such boarding houses are operative even to this day. Bibhutibhusan himself stayed in such a boarding house for quite a few years when he was a teacher at Khelat Ghosh’s school in Esplanade. Apu, who travelled from Nischindipur to the city for higher studies, understandably chose to stay in such a boarding house at this locality. 

Once sure of the location, I decided to pay a visit and compare as to how much the locale has changed in these six decades. Anyone who is familiar with the visual history of Calcutta will know that, how little records do we have of these lesser prominent and less touristy parts of the city. In such a case an outdoor shot from a film is probably the best documentary record that is available. Admittedly I was a bit relieved when I reached the location on a weekday afternoon. Yes the tube well that one could see in the film is gone; the grand house behind Apu, (more about it later) is not the same anymore. But still there is enough to easily identify the location. And finally the house, that Apu was seen entering; the mess he was looking for is still there.

But there was more that I discovered during this 'trip'.  The grand house that is visible behind Apu, now in a dilapidated state also has a remote connection with Satyajit Ray. It was the residence of Satindranath Bhattacharya, who played the role Satyaranjan Sarkar in Ray's Mahapurush. Satindra who was part of all Ritwik Ghatak films barring ‘Titas ekti nadir naam’, also acted in Baksho Badal, a film scripted by Ray. The plaque at the entrance of this house suggests that it was the also the

residence of Taranath Tarkabachaspati. Taranath Tarkabachaspati, as this memorial plaque suggests was a lexicographer and a reviver of Sanskrit lore. Taranath a professor of the Sanskrit College, for twenty-seven long years, is chiefly remembered for compilation of the Sanskrit dictionary Vachaspatya. Tarkabachaspati also published a treatise on Sanskrit grammar titled Sabdartharatnam.

What I personally found interesting was his role in the contemporary reform movements and the complexities of his relationship with Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The friendship between these two pundits finds mention in all the major biographies of Vidyasagar. The trouble that Vidyasagar took to travel and inform Taranath of his appointment at the Sanskrit College became a major lore of the former's life. Later, Vidysagar found an able aide in Taranath, during his movement for introduction of the Widow-remarriage Act. In Taranath's biography, his son, Jivananda even claimed that, it was Taranath who provided the crucial scriptural evidence in favor widow remarriage. As Brian Hatcher observed, though it is difficult to be sure of Jivananda's claim "Vidyasagar did later found what it meant not to have Taranath arguing on his behalf".

In his next major campaign against polygamy, Vidyasagar to his surprise found his old comrade in the opposite camp. Taranath even went on to publish a tract titled Bahubibaha Vadh in favor of polygamy of the kulins. Vidyasagar in his retort, Bahubibaha was particularly acerbic to Taranath. A separate section of the second pamphlet against polygamy (Tarkabacharpati-prakarana) was reserved for Taranath. As Vidyasagar's campaign began to falter, his frustration became even apparent. In a very uncharacteristic manner, we found Vidyasagar resorting to ad hominem attack on his former comrade. These attacks were conducted through two pamphlets, Ati olpo hoilo and Abar oti olpo hoilo, published under the pseudonym of 'the competent nephew' (upojuktosyo bhaiposyo). Tarkabachaspati remained silent against in reply to what Sumit Sarkar described as outbursts of 'helpless anger'. Their friendship though was never mended, Tarkabachaspati died in 1885. Vidyasagar died an exasperated man six years later.

Suggested Readings

Indra Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar

Brian Hatcher, Vidyasagar

Sambhuchandra Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jibanharit o Bhramanirah

Brian Hatcher, What became of the Colonial pundits?, Modern Asian Studies, 39, 3(2005)