FRANCE-POPE/STATUE Realistic wax statue of Pope Francis unveiled at Paris' Notre Dame cathedral

Record ID: 160913

  • Title: FRANCE-POPE/STATUE Realistic wax statue of Pope Francis unveiled at Paris' Notre Dame cathedral
  • Date: 2nd April 2015
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (APRIL 2, 2015) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** MAN UNVEILING WAX STATUE OF POPE FRANCIS VARIOUS OF STATUE EYE OF POPE FRANCIS' WAX STATUE VARIOUS OF POPE FRANCIS STATUE PEOPLE QUEUING OUTSIDE NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMERICAN TOURIST, SAYING: "I love that he is so happy and jovial and seems like, you know, a true representation of the Pope today as opposed to the more solemn folks we've seen in the past." JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMERICAN TOURIST, LORI, SAYING: "I think it's amazing, we thought that was an impersonator. So it's really cool , yeah." JOURNALIST SPEAKING TO SCULPTOR, POONEH AZIMINEJADI (SOUNDBITE) (French) SCULPTOR, POONEH AZIMINEJADI, SAYING: "From the start, I understood that I was not allowed to mess up this figure. There are many people all over the world who love the Pope, who adore the Pope and I am responsible for giving a true image, without adding or removing anything. So of course being hyper-realistic but also managing to capture and reproduce the radiance emitted by his face." NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) BELGIAN TOURIST, KURT, SAYING: "We thought it was the real Pope we saw, because I told to my students here 'take a picture and tell to your parents you spoke with the Pope'. So it's a very good project I guess." PEOPLE TAKING PICTURES WITH AND IN FRONT OF THE STATUE PHOTOGRAPHERS AZIMINEJADI AND TEAM FROM GREVIN WAX MUSEUM POSING FOR PICTURES WITH STATUE
  • Embargoed: 17th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1DAQJUIYE8V62795JTHPIF46J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Visitors were pleasantly surprised as a wax statue of Pope Francis was unveiled on Thursday (April 2) at the foot of the Notre Dame Cathedral, one of Paris' main tourist attractions.
    Ordered by the Grevin wax museum, the statue depicts a smiling Pope with his notorious thumbs up.
    "I love that he is so happy and jovial and seems like, you know, a true representation of the Pope today as opposed to the more solemn folks we've seen in the past," an American visitor said.
    Tourists were stunned at just how real the wax statue looked, giving some people, like American tourist Lori, the impression that he was standing right in front of them.
    "I think it's amazing, we thought that was an impersonator. So it's really cool , yeah," she said.
    Using photographs and various documents, it took six months for sculptor Pooneh Aziminejadi and a team of over 15 artists from the Grevin's own workshop to finish the statue. Aziminejadi is known in particular for her sculpture of Czechoslovakian writer Karel Capek for the Grevin Museum in Prague.
    "From the start, I understood that I was not allowed to mess up this figure. There are many people all over the world who love the Pope, who adore the Pope and I am responsible for giving a true image, without adding or removing anything. So of course being hyper-realistic but also managing to capture and reproduce the radiance emitted by his face," she said.
    Visitors attempted to get as close as they could to have their picture taken with the realistic rendition of Pope Francis, like Kurt and a group of teenagers from Belgium.
    "We thought it was the real Pope we saw, because I told to my students here 'take a picture and tell to your parents you spoke with the Pope'. So it's a very good project I guess," Kurt said.
    To celebrate the new figure, the Grevin wax museum in Paris is giving out 150 invitations to the Secours Catholique, a non-profit organisation of the Catholic Church, to come and see its newest addition.
    The sculpture will leave the Notre Dame Cathedral for the Grevin museum on Thursday afternoon and will then be on display to the public, along with eight other pope statues, including that of John Paul II.
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