Marie’s first drawing of Doctor Curtius, her master and the owner of the waxworks where she would work. She was five years old.

The shoes of Louis Sébastian Mercier

Former inhabitant of 20 Boulevard du temple

Former inhabitant of 20 Boulevard du temple

Voltaire on his death bed

Death mask of Jean Paul Marat. Death masks are absolutely true, they are fact pure and simple: This is what the man actually looked like.

The death mask of Dr. Philip Wilhelm

Her peg doll, Marta. A gift from her mother, it is an object she keeps with her all her life.

Her first drawing of Edmond “Ordinary” Picot from memory. He has a very forgettable face, Marie can never remember it, so she adds more substantial things to help her.

A full​-​length version of​ Marie, carved from an abandoned telegraph pole in rural Tipperary. The glass eyes I picked up from a small dark little shop in Prague​ (it’s very hard to find a pair​; ​a person generally only orders one at a time​)​

The clothes are from a Parisian flea market ​,​ and the hair was most generously contributed by my wife.

The nose she inherited from her mother, the chin from her father.

Her ungainly inheritance

A self-portrait

A self-portrait in old age, when her eyesight is deteriorating.