Blaschka Glass Models - Sea Creatures

The other day I was overtaken by a yearning to visit The Natural History Museum in London, and slightly heartbroken that I could not. But the truth of the matter is that in this digital age we can visit places we're unlikely to ever see in the flesh and discover so many wonderful things that we may not otherwise have the opportunity to see. I, of course, quickly ran to my computer to check out the Natural History Museum website.

My first accidental stop was a museum treasure page dedicated to the Blaschka glass models of sea creatures. I was immediately taken by the wonderful depictions of the sea creatures and the delicacy of the glass work. The colours, form, and the accuracy of their depictions is both impressive and a treat for the eyes. I'd highly recommend watching the video linked on the museum page, to get a deeper feeling of the delicacy and artistic merit of the invertebrates collection, and checking out the various other pages dedicated to the Baschka glass models. My favourites are the sea creatures but over the period of their careers Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka created many intricate glass models, including a vast collection of very realistic botanical models housed at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Thanks to the National Museum of Wales, and their presence on Flickr, providing imagery under a creative commons license, I can share some of my favourites of the sea creature beauties here.



Portuguese Man-of-War





Glaucus longicirrus.



Female Paper Nautilus

I also found this last image on an individual flickr photostream and I was so taken with it that I'm including it here also. The following photo is thanks to Leo Reynolds sharing his photo under a creative commons license



Sea anemones

These wonderful treasures in both art and depicting natural history were created by a father and son team , Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, from the mid-19th Century through to 1938 when Rudolf Blaschka retired, aged 80. In addition to their glass renditions of sea creatures they also supplied Harvard with many sculptures of flora and their Glass Flowers was extensive, producing over 3000 models for Harvard alone.

Their work was intricate, scientifically relevant, and unparalleled. The work produced by Leopold and Rudolf added much depth to the art and science of depicting natural history, creating scientifically accurate renditions that surpassed traditional methods of storing such specimens. There is so much more to their work than the small sample I've provided here and pieces are held and shown in museums worldwide. For further information there are many online links to visit. The following video is a good introduction to the Blaschka's.




For those who are interested here is a list of further links you may find interesting. Most focus on the Glass Flowers but they are all worth a read. After all, while I fell in love with the glass sculptures of invertebrates the Glass Flowers are amazing work also.

Wikipedia entry on Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka
Another Natural History Museum of London link, with a slideshow of the sea creatures
Corning Museum of Glass article on the Glass Flowers.
Article on the Glass Flowers: The Journal of Antiques and collectibles.
Cabinet Magazine article on the Blaschkas.
Design Museum article on Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. There are a couple of typos that list Rudolfs' death as 1929 when in fact it was 1939, but still worth a read.