Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka Collection

Leopold (1822 – 1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857 – 1939), father and son glassmakers from Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, are known for their highly-accurate, three-dimensional marine invertebrate and botanical glass models created for study in institutions worldwide. Other craftsmen were fabricating educational study models in the mid-19th century out of materials such as such as wax, papier–mâché and wire, but the Blaschkas were the first to create models in glass.

Leopold was born in Aicha, now Český Dub, and the third generation in a family of glassworkers. As a young man, he worked for a short time as an apprentice goldsmith and gem-cutter before beginning work in the family’s metal and glass business making flame-worked costume jewelry and luxury goods for their growing export trade. The company moved to Dresden in 1863; in the 1870s Leopold’s son Rudolf joined the studio.

In the early 1860s, Leopold began creating glass models of tropical flowers based upon botanical drawings out of a personal interest in natural history. Prince Camille de Rohan (1800 – 1892) of Prague discovered his work and became a patron, commissioning 100 models of exotic flowers for his private collection, and supporting Leopold’s further botanical study. The Prince introduced Leopold to Ludwig Reichenbach (1793 – 1879), director of The Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden in Dresden; in 1863, Reichenbach arranged an exhibition of Leopold’s glass flowers. Soon Leopold began working almost exclusively in glass, and by the 1870s the studio was focusing production on human and animal eyes, models and dishes. Order records in the collection reflect several commissions from this decade for glass animals; in particular, orders for artificial glass sea anemones for aquariums.

In the mid-19th century, the study of natural history, or the natural sciences, based on observation and empirical evidence in describing and understanding the physical world, flourished, well-positioning the Blaschkas’ model-making to grow into a business. Glass models were ideal, as they held their color and shape, unlike dried plant specimens, or marine invertebrates preserved in alcohol or formaldehyde. Additionally, an interest in aquariums, popularized by British naturalist Philip Henry Gosse (1810 – 1888), undoubtedly spurred the market for marine models.

Gosse’s drawings inspired the Blaschkas’ early sea invertebrate models. They reproduced the marine animal drawings in Gosse’s book Actinologia Britannica: A History of the British Anemones and Corals, in three-dimensional detail depicted in their natural habitats. A later influence on the Blaschkas’ work were the scientific descriptions and interpretations of Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919). Haeckel, an artist and zoologist, described thousands of new invertebrate species, producing several monographs in his career. Correspondence indicates that the Blaschkas and Haeckel shared books, and most likely visited one another. Eventually, the Blaschkas worked from an aquarium of their own, populating it with live specimens shipped to them in wet seaweed.

By the 1880s, glass models were the chief product of the Blaschka studio. Their models held a certain prestige, and they supplied universities, museums and schools around the world, including Ireland, India, Japan and the United States. In 1886, George Lincoln Goodale, professor of botany at Harvard University who had seen Leopold’s and Rudolf’s work at the Boston Society of Natural History Museum, visited the Blaschkas in their home in Dresden to contract them to make models for Harvard’s Botanical Museum. This visit was the beginning of a long relationship between the Blaschka studio and the university. By 1890, the Blaschkas were creating glass botanical models exclusively for Harvard, funded by Mary Lee and Elizabeth Ware. They continued to supply the university until 1938; the Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants contains 4,400 Blaschka works. Cornell University employed the Blaschkas as well, beginning in 1885, and has 400 marine invertebrate models among its holdings. Other Blaschka model collections, both of marine invertebrates and botanicals, exist in numerous institutions around the world.

Bibliography:

Reiling, H., (1998). The Blaschkas’ Glass Animal Models: Origins of Design. Journal of Glass Studies, vol. #40, 104 – 126.

Whitehouse, D., (1991). The Blaschka Animals. Glass, no. 44, 36 – 41.

Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka Collection, Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Research Library, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY 14830.