Venus or Victim? Waxworks of Women in the long 19th century

One of the more memorable waxworks in Castan’s famous Panoptikum in Berlin is the representation of the “Camelien-Dame” or Dame aux camélias: “Having returned exhausted from the ball she has thrown herself onto her silken daybed and is now dreaming happily of new triumphs,” the Guide to the Panoptikum explained in 1890. Although there is no mention of it in the text, her impending death is implied not only in the figure’s title, but also in the pose. Yet, a mechanical device implanted in the figure’s chest made her bosom rise and fall as if asleep – the “Camelien-Dame” is not only the victim of her disease and object of the spectator’s gaze, but also a moving, active, almost living body. The paper will examine the link between the material, the iconography and the “reading” of the figure of the reclining female in wax.