The Blaschkas: a glass menagerie
The most amazing aspect of the story of artisan glassmakers Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka is that there are at least 1,000 points in its 157-year history where it could have fallen apart or been forgotten completely. It’s entirely because of the love and care for the Blaschkas’ fragile, phenomenal glasswork — mainly by a long line of people who did not know each other directly and who, in some cases, wished to remain anonymous — that anyone in the 21st century even knows who the Blaschkas are. And many more people still know the father and son’s work without knowing their names.
There are also at least 1,000 reasons to love the Blaschkas’ story.
Born in 1822 to a long line of glassmakers, Leopold Blaschka joined the family business of making glass eyes. His early promise was interrupted when he became sick and left Europe on an ocean journey, a remedy prescribed by his doctor. This was, perhaps, the first of many coincidences that would set Blaschka on the path toward global renown as a master glassmaker, for it was on the transatlantic journey that Blaschka spent his days studying sea creatures, making detailed drawings of marine animals — invertebrates, mainly.
By the time he returned from the voyage, Blaschka had plenty of material to test the possibility of establishing a new speciality for himself: making marine invertebrate models. In addition to selling these models to universities and aquaria, he had plenty of private clients, too. “At the time, it was fashionable to have aquariums. People had these in their parlours, but often what was in the aquarium was made of glass”, says Linda Ford, Director of Collections Operations for Harvard’s Museum of Natural History.
Leopold’s son, Rudolf, was born in 1857; like his father, he displayed an early talent, skill, and interest in the craft of glassmaking, and by the early 1880s, the father-son atelier — unaided by apprentices or other employees — was enjoying brisk business. Although the Blaschkas obviously didn’t have contemporary technology at their disposal, word about their fine glasswork spread quickly. Museum directors and professors, researchers and lecturers had come across the Blaschkas’ marine models and immediately saw how these were a drastic improvement over dead specimens pickled in glass jars.
Before three-dimensional models like those the Blaschkas were producing, students had to fill in a lot of visual and mental blanks. The full glory of an octopus’s tentacles or the curious mouth of the squid couldn’t be appreciated at all; in a jar, the tentacles were typically curled in a heap under the octopus’s top-heavy body, while the finer details of a squid — or any other sea creature for that matter — couldn’t be considered because, quite simply, it couldn’t all be seen. Modelling made the whole being of the animal come suddenly, stunningly into view.
Absolute fidelity
And the Blaschkas’ models were exceptional, renowned for their absolute fidelity to specimens and their fine eye for detail; all the more impressive because the Blaschkas lived in landlocked Dresden. Although Leopold had managed to amass a respectable group of studies, he did not have immediate access to additional specimens, nor could he quickly resolve any questions he had about the physiology, structure, movement, colouration, or typical markings of the sea creatures he had drawn. Books and field reports were critical sources for him, as were letters and drawings from scholar- researchers.
Yet looking at the thousands of delicate cilia of the comb jelly, or the layered piling of cerata of the sea slug, it’s incredible to think how perfect the Blaschkas’ models were when they hadn’t seen with their own eyes the vast majority of the objects they were recreating.
One of the people who heard of the Blaschkas’ work and was interested in making some purchases of his own was Harvard University’s George Lincoln Goodale. Goodale, the first director of the university’s Botanical Museum, had seen some of the duo’s marine models at the university and was stunned by their quality. He was mapping out the exhibits for his museum and confronting a challenge he hadn’t been sure how he’d surmount. How could he present botanical specimens in a way that would be faithful to their in-the-field beauty and, by extension, would draw in the crowds that are necessary to sustain a museum’s operations? Boston’s cold north-eastern winters made the problem more acute. Glass models, Goodale thought, might solve his problem.
Goodale was so convinced he had hit upon a solution that he packed his bags and headed to Dresden, where he sought — and was granted — a one-on-one meeting with the Blaschkas. He made his case and set down his offer; he was prepared to commission the men to create a collection of glass flowers for Harvard. But the Blaschkas weren’t interested. For one thing, they had a steady business and weren’t likely to be able to handle more work since they had no help. For another, Leopold had tried his hand at glass flowers and wasn’t particularly pleased with the result. Still, Goodale was persistent. Easing off his full-on proposal, he suggested that the men might create just a few models. With the intense pressure off, the Blaschkas agreed and the beginning of a long and mutually fruitful relationship began.
Mistaken for contraband
And this is where the story becomes more interesting still, and at times, the stuff of legend. The Blaschkas prepared a shipment of models for Goodale that, upon arrival at US Customs, was destroyed, whether through mishandling or, as some people like to tell the tale, because customs agents believed they had a shipment of contraband botanicals on their hands, only realising their mistake after the fact.
Enough models survived, however, that Goodale was able to show a few off and these drew the attention of Boston socialites Elizabeth and Mary Lee Ware, who told Goodale to secure a contract with the Blaschkas; they would underwrite the entire collection. More persuasive negotiations ensued and the Blaschkas committed to spending half their time making glass flowers for Harvard and half continuing to produce marine models for existing customers.
In 1887, the first official shipment of Blaschka glass flowers arrived in New York, with careful, detailed instructions about their handling in customs — the opening of the packages was to be supervised by a museum staff member. No one was more pleased than Goodale and the Wares, but the Blaschkas appeared to have been content with the arrangement too; by 1890, three years into the contract, they left off the marine animals to dedicate themselves full-time to the production of the glass flowers. Harvard responded with a 10-year contract. The men would be paid well for their work, more than $30,000 at today’s exchange rates.
Today, Harvard’s glass flowers are displayed together in a dedicated room at its Museum of Natural History, where they are one of the key attractions, along with the smaller, rotating collection of Blaschka marine animals. But the fact that they are mostly intact and grouped together for such glorious display is yet another incredible success story on the Blaschka timeline.
Linda Ford, Director of Collections Operations for the museum, explains that the Blaschka models might have remained scattered across various departments of the university had it not been for a museum director who recognised their significance and charged Ford with the task of assessing how many models existed and in what condition.
Ford was initially sceptical, and not particularly enthusiastic about the task. “I was, like, glass?” she recounts, laughing. “I don’t come from a background that knows anything about glass or art or anthropology. But once you see them, the Blaschka models resonate on many, many levels, as a biologist. And I’m not even an invertebrate biologist. They resonate in how perfect they convey structure and form.”
Recognising the significance of the models, Ford tasked a staffer with the work of combing across the university’s collections to identify Blaschka models. “I was told there were about 50 or 60 models, but every day she’d come in and say, ‘I found 20 more, I found 15 more, I found five more’, and then we were up to 430.”
Precious
What Ford found astonishing, beyond the sheer number of models, was the relatively good condition in which most of the models seemed to be. “Nobody who had the models [at Harvard] knew anything about glass, but they knew how precious they were. We found them in weird little boxes, but they were gingerly wrapped in cushions and put away so they wouldn’t inadvertently be popped”, Ford says.
Despite her initial uncertainty about the place of glass in a natural history museum, Ford was certain about her responsibility to ensure that the collection would remain in excellent condition under her watch. To do so, however, she’d need some specialist assistance. She called in Elizabeth Brill, a renowned conservator of glass who lives and works in one of the world’s foremost, if unlikely looking, capitals of glass: Corning, New York. In addition to being an exceptional conservator, Brill had an especially unique qualification for working on the marine animal models: she knows marine animals particularly well.
For Brill, who has spent a considerable amount of the past eight years of her career working on the restoration and preservation of the Blaschka models, the Harvard collection was a cause for wonder and excitement. In a video about her work, in which Brill is shown restoring some of the Blaschka models, she says that the Blaschkas’ ongoing refinement of material and technique made learning about their approach to glassmaking a constant challenge.
At one point in their career, the Blaschkas became so dissatisfied with the glass they were sourcing that they began to make it themselves. The same was true for paint. The artisans were always looking for ways to improve their work.
“When Rudolf [who had no children] died, the techniques disappeared with him”, says Jane Pickering, Executive Director of Harvard Museums of Science and Culture. “Even today, when you talk with glass artists and glassworkers, they can’t work out how they [the Blaschkas] actually put them together.”
As one walks through the exhibits today, it’s impossible not to be moved by the collection.
The flowers collection, even more vast than the sea creatures collection, contains thousands of models representing a vast range of botanicals. The sheer number is almost inconceivable. “When you think about this”, Pickering says, “the work output is incredible.”
Here are cacti. There are tree branches laden with cherry blossoms. In the next case, there’s the heavy, pendulum-shaped bloom of the banana and the one behind that houses the delicate vase-like flowers of the pitcher plant. There are vines of passionflowers and cacao pods. There is the absolutely true-to-life fig, itself an extraordinary mini-narrative among a host of incredible stories: a tree was sent to the Blaschkas; it took six years to grow and, hence, six years to make the model.
There is even a display case featuring models of diseased plants, the stain of blight doing nothing at all to mar the beauty of the Blaschkas’ extraordinary skill. Seeing the models, it’s easy to understand what one has seen in pictures: the transfer of models from one site to another by first class plane seat, by hearse, by motorcades navigating between New York and Boston. It’s understandable that a donor reached out to the museum to underwrite the maintenance of the collection on the condition of anonymity, ensuring that the Blaschka glass will survive for, at least one hopes, another 157 years.
Originally published at www.contributoria.com.
