THE BLASCHKA FLOWER MODELS. 665 



art by the Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who brought home re- 

 ports of the demand among Eastern nations for imitation gems, 

 especially pearls, and these were consequently made in vast quan- 

 tities for exportation. 



Not all her jealous care, however, could prevent the art of 

 Venice from spreading to other countries. The makers of these 

 flower models of the Ware Collection claim that their ancestors 

 brought from Venice to Bohemia the secrets of their craft. Be 

 this as it may, Bohemia was the next country to manufacture 

 glass, and the Bohemians introduced a new decorative system, 

 that of engraving glass. To this succeeded the art of glass cut- 

 ting and of luster making as well as that of painting glass. 



Germany, France, and Belgium were not slow to follow Bohe- 

 mia, and in each country new processes and new decorative ideas 

 were developed. Thus the manufacture of glass spread through- 

 out the civilized world. 



To come down to the personal history of the artists in ques- 

 tion, Leopold Blaschka was born in 1822, in Aicha, a village of 

 northern Bohemia. His father, Joseph Blaschka, was not only 

 a skilled glass worker, but was also an able mechanic and 

 electrician. 



After his early education in the grammar school of his native 

 town, Leopold Blaschka was placed in the studio of the painter 

 Eisner, with whom he studied for some time. At the same time 

 he acquired from his father a thorough knowledge of the gold- 

 smith's trade, becoming expert in the cutting and setting of gems 

 and in gold and silver work a knowledge which he put" to a 

 practical use in the manufacture of fancy articles for exportation. 



From childhood, however, he had felt an abgorbing interest in 

 natural history, and when in the interest of his business he made 

 a voyage in a sailing vessel to America in 1854, he found ample 

 opportunity during a calm at sea to make many studies and 

 drawings of marine invertebrates. On his return he began what 

 proved to be his life work the modeling of plants and animals in 

 glass. 



Some of these earlier models came under the notice of the 

 botanist Prince Camille de Rohan, for whom Blaschka made a 

 collection of about sixty orchids in glass. These were first exhib- 

 ited in Prince de Rohan's palace in Prague in 1862. They after- 

 ward came into the possession of the museum at Li^ge, where 

 they, were unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1863. 



Certain annoying circumstances connected with one of these 

 earlier collections, together with the fate of the Li^ge models, 

 gave Blaschka a distaste for this branch of his work, which he 

 abandoned forthwith, devoting himself exclusively to the manu- 

 facture of animal models. 



VOL. L. 50 



