A museum featuring wax sculptures of prominent figures in Iran’s history, the first of its kind in the country, will open at the historical Ettehadiyeh garden house located in central Tehran.
Called Mashahir Museum, it will be established during the first half of the upcoming fiscal year that starts on March 21.
Wax museums are quite common throughout the world, such as ‘Madame Tussauds’ in London, said Mojtaba Mousavi, deputy for culture and urban art at the Tehran Beautification Organization, Mehr News Agency reported.
Ettehadiyeh house is known as one of the most outstanding buildings, dating back to the Qajar Dynasty (1789-1925). It covers 8,000 sq m and is located near Ferdowsi Avenue.
Currently, the building is under restoration. The required infrastructure for the museum is also under construction.
Reportedly, the sculptures to be featured would be hyper-realistic wax models of outstanding personalities in Persian literature, art, sports, science, international figures, and martyrs and people who made history during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Creating hyper-realistic wax sculptures is a challenging task due to the time-consuming process. The sculptures are supposed to look exactly like the real characters, in all facial and body details.
“There are only a handful of artists who are professionals in creating wax sculptures. This and the fact that a majority of the outstanding people whose sculptures are to be made are not alive today, makes the job much harder. Because, making a sculpture that perfectly matches the subject requires high quality images of the subjects from different angles, which are not available for a number of people,” the official said.
However, to solve a part of the problem, a number of artists have been selected after holding training sessions for those who were not adroit enough in the job and improve their skills. “Twelve teams of sculptors are currently busy working on the project.”
Mousavi expects 120 wax sculptures will be ready to be featured at the exhibition opening.
