668 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the death of Leopold Blaschka in July, 1895, since the work 

 now falls wholly on his surviving son. 



One of the questions asked most often is whether there is no 

 one besides Rudolf Blaschka who can make these models, or who 

 can at least assist him in making them. 



When the nature of the work is investigated, it becomes evi- 

 dent that the only answer to this question is a negative one. This 

 is due, not so much to the existence of any one secret connected 

 with the production of the flowers, as to the fact that they are 

 the result of the keenest artistic perceptions, and of absolute 

 scientific accuracy, combined with a wonderful delicacy of manip- 

 ulation, and also with infinite patience! That the family pos- 

 sesses certain technical secrets is not to be denied ; and not only 

 these hereditary secrets, but many new devices of the art have 

 been called into requisition by these two wonder-workers in 

 whose hands the brittle substance has assumed a plastic char- 

 acter. It is not glass hloivmg but glass Tnodeling which has pro- 

 duced these marvelous imitations of Nature. Glass of all degrees 

 of fusibility has been used in their composition, and the colors 

 have been subjected to many experiments : some are imparted to 

 the glass while fused, some while cooling, and some are applied 

 afterward. All the pigments used are mineral colors, as an 

 attempt to supplement these with aniline tints failed utterly. 



During the lifetime of the elder Blaschka, the father and son 

 were inseparable in their Work ; no one step, however slight, was 

 taken by the one without first consulting the other. They worked 

 at the same table, and Prof. Goodale, who alone has been privi- 

 leged to see the process, confesses himself even more puzzled by 

 their rapidity and skill after seeing the work than before ! 



The highest degree of excellence, too, has been attained in the 

 use of cements and in the method of securing the models to the 

 tablets ; the reproduction of the widely different textures of leaf 

 and petal is a marvel by itself, and such perfection can have been 

 reached only by infinitely painstaking experiment and study. All 

 these matters, as may readily be seen, are not easily acquired or 

 imparted, and for these reasons the collection seems likely to 

 remain, as it is at present, absolutely unique. The artists have 

 been given every opportunity and advantage in the way of plants 

 for study. A photograph of their pleasant home in Hosterwitz 

 shows a large but unpretending house, surrounded by a garden in 

 which American plants are grown. The Blaschkas have had the 

 benefit, too, of the Royal Gardens at Pilnitz, the summer home of 

 the court of Saxony, which is situated on the Elbe within a mile 

 of Dresden. 



The Blaschka house contains two studios, in which the models 

 of the Ware Collection are exhibited to a number of invited guests 



