After I encountered Haeckel, I began looking more into sea creatures and biological forms. During this research, I came across the Blaschka Glass Invertebrates Collection at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka were a father and son duo of German glass artists working during the mid to late 1800s. The family business was originally focused on producing glass eyes and ornaments, but after his father Joseph died of cholera in 1850, Leopold began to branch out into other areas. In 1853 he traveled to the US, but the ship was delayed at sea, sparking an interest in marine creatures that would eventually lead to his glass creations some years later. Leopold began making glass models of flowers, and in 1857 a French prince commissioned him to make one hundred glass orchids for his palace. The orchids caught the attention of the director of the natural history museum in Dresden, who asked Leopold to create a series of twelve glass anemones for educational purposes. The idea was to use these glass models to replace the practice of placing specimens in jars of alcohol, which only preserved them for a short time. Leopold’s anemones were a big success, called “an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art.” Leopold, and his son Rudolf, developed a reputation for being highly skilled and scientifically accurate, and soon museums and collectors all over the world began purchasing the models. Today, the Harvard Museum of Natural History has a collection of nearly 400 of the glass invertebrate models. Cornell also has an extensive collection.
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