Aujourd'hui Aujourd'hui (≈ 2025)
Position de référence.
Key figures
Arthur Meyer - Founder and director of *Le Gaulois*
Initiator of the project in 1881.
Alfred Grévin - Sculptor and cartoonist
Creator of the first wax figures.
Gabriel Thomas - Financial and patron
Develops the museum until 1999.
Émile Reynaud - Inventor of light Pantomimes
First projection animated in 1892.
Stéphane Bern - President of the Grévin Academy (since 2001)
Select the new statues.
Antoine Benoist - Sculptor of the seventeenth century
Author of the funeral mask of Louis XIV.
Origin and history
The Grévin Museum is a private wax museum created on June 5, 1882 by Arthur Meyer, then editor of the newspaper Le Gaulois, to enable the public to visualize the personalities mentioned in the press, at a time when photography was not yet widespread. It is inspired by an ancient tradition of wax representation, dating back to the seventeenth century with royal figures like that of Louis XIV by Antoine Benoist. The project took shape thanks to the collaboration with the sculptor Alfred Grévin, known for his cartoons, and the financial support of Gabriel Thomas, who organized his development until 1999.
The museum quickly enriched with sumptuous decorations, such as the room of La Coupole and its baroque elements (1882), as well as innovative attractions: the Fantastic Cabinet (1886-1892), forerunner of animated projections with Émile Reynaud, and the Palais des Mirages (1908), playing on optical illusions. In 1889, Emile Reynaud's light Pantomimes presented the first public screening of a cartoon, Poor Pierrot. The Grévin Theatre, integrated into the course, hosts shows until 2000, with a stage curtain painted by Jules Chéret and a high relief by Antoine Bourdelle.
The museum evolved with its era: in 1981, an annex opened at the Forum des Halles (closed in 1996), and branches were created in France (Tours, Mont-Saint-Michel, etc.) before being gradually closed after the acquisition by the Parc Asterix group in 1999. Internationally, subsidiaries are launched in Montreal (2013-2021), Prague (2014-2018) and Seoul (2015-2018), but are struggling to survive. In 2001, the Académie Grévin, chaired by Stéphane Bern, was created to select the new personalities to be immortalized in wax.
The production of the characters involves about fifteen artists per statue, using 34 kg of bee wax and 22 litres of paint for a minimum cost of € 50,000. Figures, such as La Mort de Marat (1889) or the kings of France (1939-1960), are regularly renewed to reflect current events. Some, withdrawn or stolen (such as those of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing or Emmanuel Macron), are stored in a Parisian warehouse. In 2024, humorous statues of Ramzy Bedia and Eric Judor, voluntarily non-resembling, were temporarily exposed.
The Grévin Museum remains an emblematic place of Parisian culture, mixing art, history and entertainment. Its thematic journey, its 300 current figures and its historical decorations (like the Paintings of the French Revolution) make it a major attraction, visited by more than 500,000 people a year in the 1990s. The site, partially listed as historical monuments for its theatre, is also rented for private events.
