Page 205 - The Secret Museum

THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY was founded in 1859, making it one of the

oldest museums in America. Its storage rooms are filled with 21 million specimens
that will rarely, if ever, be displayed. Among these are the 430 fantastic glass models
of beautiful marine creatures painstakingly made between 1886 and 1936 by the
father and son glass artists Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka in their studio in Dresden.

The museum displays 3,200 glass models of flowering plants lovingly created by
the German duo; they are visited by over 100,000 people a year. However, not many
visitors to the museum know that there are glass creations not on display: the marine
creatures, which are behind the scenes.

When the curator and I walked through the room in which they live, hundreds of

tiny jellyfish and marine mammal tentacles and spines shivered in time with our
steps. The sea slugs, sea cucumbers, jellyfish and squid are kept in drawers and
storage cupboards, on shelves labelled ‘Blaschka glass invertebrates, please do not
disturb’.

If they were in a public area of the museum, all the human traffic would be too
much for the delicate creatures and they might break apart. Also, the colours are at
risk of fading from exposure to light. So, in storage they remain. But how did they get
there?

The intricate pieces look contemporary, but in fact they were made over a century
ago. They were used for teaching students and were, at first, on public display. The

Blaschkas made hundreds of glass creatures for museums and universities all over
Europe. They copied drawings in books, created things they saw with their own eyes
out at sea, and kept specimens for reference in an aquarium in their workshop. They
also made glass eyes, beakers and test tubes.

That was until George Goodale, the first director of Harvard’s Botanical Museum,
hired them on an exclusive contract to make more than 4,000 models of plants. It was
too big a commission to refuse, and they never made zoological models again.

The twosome grew American plants in their own garden, which they rendered in
glass, and made trips to the Caribbean for more samples. They worked on the plants

together until Leopold’s death, after which Rudolph carried on alone, heating and
shaping glass into plants, until he died, 40 years later. The plants collection they
created is called the ‘Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants’, and
even today they are the most popular exhibits in the museum. When 25 were taken to
New York City for an exhibition, they were driven in a hearse, as this was the
smoothest ride the curators could find for them.

The Blaschkas’ marine creations, which pre-date the flowers, still amaze
scientists with their anatomical accuracy, and they last longer than real specimens

that are stored in spirit, like the anglerfish and his fishy pals.
I saw a cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris), stored in spirit. It was
collected in 1862 by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz (1807–73) as a new genus,