page_title: Glass sea creatures
section_title: Reichenbach's request
hierarchical_section_title: Glass sea creatures / Reichenbach's request
caption_attribution_description: English: Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879), German botanist and zoologist
context_page_description: The glass sea creatures are works of glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. The artistic predecessors of the Glass Flowers, the sea creatures were the output of the Blaschkas' successful mail-order business of supplying museums and private collectors around the world with sets of glass models of marine invertebrates.
  Between 1863 and 1880, the Blaschkas – working in Dresden – executed at least 10,000 of these highly detailed glass models, representing some 700 different species.
  A number of large collections of the models are held by museums and other academic institutions. Harvard's Museum of Natural History exhibits many of the Blaschka's glass creations, and its Museum of Comparative Zoology hold 430 items in the Blaschka Glass Invertebrate Collection and display about 60 at any given time. Cornell University has about 570 items in its collection and has restored some 170 of these, with many others in its collection stored at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. The largest collection in Europe, of 530 pieces, is at Ireland's Natural History Museum.
context_section_description: Director of the natural history museum in Dresden, Prof. Reichenbach was faced with an annoying yet seemingly unsolvable problem in regards to showing marine life. Land-based flora and fauna was not an issue, for it was a relatively simple matter to exhibit mounted and stuffed creatures such as gorillas and elephants, there lifelike poses attracting and exciting the museums visitors. Invertebrates, however, and by their very nature, posed a problem. In the 19th century the only practiced method of showcasing them was to take a live specimen and place it in a sealed jar of alcohol. This of course killed it but, more importantly, time and their lack of hard parts eventually rendered them into little more than colorless floating blobs of jelly. Neither pretty nor a terribly effective teaching tool, Prof. Reichenbach wanted something more, specifically 3D colored models of marine invertebrates that were both lifelike and able to stand the test of time. And, per remarkably coincidence, in 1863 "saw an exhibition of highly detailed, realistic glass flowers created by a Bohemian lampworker named Leopold Blaschka."
  Enchanted by the botanical models and positive that Leopold held the key to ending his own showcasing issue, in 1863 Reichenbach convinced and commissioned Leopold to produce twelve model sea anemones. These marine models, hailed as "an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art," were a great improvement on previous methods of presenting such creatures: drawings, pressing, photographs and papier-mâché or wax models. and exactly what Prof. Reichenbach needed. Moreover they, at last, provided an outlet for the wonder Leopold had felt all those years ago when observing the phosphorescent ocean life. The key fact, though, was that these glass marine models were, as would soon be acknowledged, "perfectly true to nature," and as such represented an extraordinary opportunity boh for the scientific community and the Blaschkas themselves. Knowing this and thrilled with his newly acquired set of glass sea creatures, Reichenbach advised Leopold to drop his current and generations long family business of glass fancy goods and the like in favor of selling glass marine invertebrates to museums, aquaria, universities, and private collectors. Advice which would prove wise and fateful both economically and scientifically, for Leopold did as the Dresden natural history museum director suggested.
caption: Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach
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