Blooming Marvelous! Harvard’s Blaschka Glass Flowers

Father and son Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka spent decades glass-blowing 847 life-size plant models for Harvard professor George Lincoln Goodale, founder of the Botanical Museum. The Ware Collection of Blaschka glass plant models includes over 780 species and can be seen at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Mass. Rhododendrites/CC BY-SA 4.0

Naturally, it’s impossible to see four seasons in one day. Yet we can see hundreds of plants from around the world simultaneously—sprout, bud, bloom, set seeds, and wither away at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Throughout the museum’s collection of herbaria, plant specimens, and wax and paper-mâché models, we can see the life cycle of plants. However, many of those types of specimens and models tend to fade or decay over time. Yet a pioneering set of fragile plant models endures at the museum: “The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants.”

Paper-mâché model of Rumex, 1877, by Dr. Louis Thomas Jérôme Auzoux. National Museum of Education, in Rouen, France. In addition to pressed plant specimens, 19th-century naturalists created wax and paper-mâché plant models, which were fragile and tended to tarnish easily. (MuseeEducation/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Collecting Fever

Throughout the 19th century, there was a growing fascination with the natural world as faraway lands became more accessible to adventurers.

Naturalists and expedition artists made detailed studies of flora and fauna in their natural habitats, often taking specimens home.

Avid explorers recounted their tales of new discoveries in uncharted territories. Reading those adventures, armchair explorers yearned for exotic trophies and specimens for their curiosity cabinets, and educational organizations emerged, with experts keen to display the latest discoveries.

Ocean Wonders

According to Harvard Magazine, in 1853, Czech glass artisan Leopold Blaschka (1822–95) took an ocean voyage to America and drew detailed studies of the ocean creatures caught in the crew’s fishing nets.

At the time, naturalists preserved marine animal specimens in spirit-filled jars, but the creatures soon deteriorated, losing form and color.

Since the 15th century, the Blaschka family has created glass and jewelry, mainly in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. Blaschka knew that the delicate and transparent nature of glass could replicate the sea creatures well. In Hosterwitz, near Dresden, Germany, Blaschka and his son Rudolf (1857–1939) began making glass sea creatures. They used Blaschka’s drawings alongside published zoological reports to ensure that the models stayed true to life.

They sold the models as teaching aids to educational institutions worldwide. Ward’s Natural Science Establishment distributed the models in North America. The 1888 Ward catalog lists 700 Blaschka models. Blaschka said in the catalog that “[the glass models] are universally acknowledged as being perfectly true to nature.” Many world–renowned museums still display these Blaschka glass sea creatures in their collections, including the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

According to Harvard Magazine, professor George Lincoln Goodale, the first director of Harvard’s Botanical Museum, saw the Blaschkas’ glass ocean creatures in the Harvard Museum of Natural History and envisioned a herbarium of glass flowers. He headed to the Blaschkas’ workshop in Germany, and after some discussion, they agreed to make the exclusive collection.

Reflecting Nature

From 1887 through 1936, the father-and-son team crafted 4,300 realistic glass botanical models, including 847 life-size models.

They each created roughly 50 pieces per year by carefully studying North American plant specimens in their garden and South American and Central American plants in the nearby Pillnitz Castle garden.

Close up of a display cabinet of Blaschka glass plant models, many of which are found in the United States and Canada. Top row (L–R): Psoralea lupinella (Piedmont Leatherroot), Rubus deliciosus (Delicious Raspberry), Dalibarda repens (Robin Runaway), Rosa Woodsii (Woods’ Rose), Prunus pumila (Sand Cherry), Amelanchier alnifolia (Pacific Serviceberry). Bottom row (L–R): Lathyrus magellanicus (Lord Anson’s Pea), Waldsteinia fragarioides (Barren Strawberry), Potentilla fruticosa (Coronation Triumph), Prunus serotina (Black Cherry), Ceanothus americanus (New Jersey Tea), and Begonia gracilis (Hollyhock Begonia). (Rhododendrites/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Some models consisted of many parts fused or glued together using animal hide glue. The Blaschkas used glass with two different melting points, which allowed different parts of the glass plant models to be fused together without any individual piece losing its form. Often, they would strengthen the glass models with internal wire supports.

A Blaschka glass model of Laelia crispa, an orchid species found in Brazil. (Rhododendrites/CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Blaschkas colored each plant model using colored glass or by painting a thin wash of ground-colored glass or metal oxide(s) that was then fused with heat to the model.

Amateur botanist Walter Deane (1848–1930) made detailed comparisons of 16 of the Blaschkas’ glass models with his herbarium specimens.

“There is such rigid observance of the very minutest features ... that we can be absolutely sure that every model is an exact copy of the fresh specimen which the artists had in hand,” he wrote in the Botanical Gazette (now the International Journal of Plant Sciences).

A Blaschka glass model of Polygonatum commutatum, commonly known as Solomon’s seal, which is native to the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains. (Lottsm89/CC BY-SA 4.0)

He praised the “delicate fingers of the artists” and how the Blaschkas replicated everything, even microscopic plant anatomy. Behind the lens, he marveled at models with granules on stamens and multitudes of minute buds, invisible to the naked eye.

“[Of the American angelica tree (Aralia spinosa L.)] I counted, of buds, blossoms and developing fruit, from 2,500 to 3,000,” he wrote.

Deane noted that “such wonderful work as this could have been done only by those whose love for nature and nature’s works was deep.”

“This love, combined with a master’s skill, has produced a result never before equalled,” he wrote.

Harvard’s Blaschka glass flowers perpetually reflect nature’s brilliance and the wonder of glass artisanship.

To find out more about “The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants,” visit HMNH.Harvard.edu

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