by We went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History to see something very unusual: Blaschka Glass Flower collection. You can imagine Doug’s delight to be stuck with me looking at two of my favorite things, flower and art glass.
The collection was made by the father and son team Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857-1939), who were Czech glass artists working in Germany. From 1886 to 1936 they produced 4,300 glass models representing 780 plant species. The glass pieces are highly realistic, and include full-sized models, along with models of plant parts and anatomical sections.
The pieces were commissioned by Professor George Lincoln Goodale, the director of Harvard’s Botanical Museum, for the purpose of serving as a teaching aid. At the time, the teaching method used pressed specimens, which lost both their three-dimensional aspect and their color.
Given the often tiny sizes and intricate details accomplished, the pieces truly are a wonder. Doug and I had a laugh looking at these amazing pieces and thinking of the glass beads we tried to make at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, where it seemed almost impossible to get the glass to do what we wanted.
The cover photo is California Brittlebush, 1895.
