Flowers for Friday – Glass Flowers
While we were vacationing in Boston, we made a trip up to Cambridge to go to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. The exhibit that lured us there was that they have the Ware collection of glass flowers. Yes, those flowers in the above photo are made out of glass.
We walked around, somewhat stunned that the flowers in front of us were really made out of glass.
It was difficult to fathom the amount of work and patience it would take to make these models.
Evidently, it took 50 years for Leopold Blaschka and his son to make the collection of 3000 models (830 flower species).
How many failed attempts until they got a petal or a leaf right?
And then we saw the tools that they’d used!
They seemed so bulky and large compared to the kinds of tools you’d imagine would be used today for such delicate work.
Just amazing.
Tea anyone? That plant is Camillia sinensis, the tea plant.
It is really quite a collection. And the rest of the museum is really very nice too.
Amber says:
Very pretty and very cool.
I like the rusty old tools the best, not because they are pretty, but because I always like looking at old tools.
The flowers are awesome, too.
Squirl says:
Wow, that is amazing. I’ve seen some wonderful things done with glass before. I wonder if my aunt has seen this display. She’s really into glass and lives by Boston.
Thanks for sharing these great pictures.
Ern says:
That IS amazing. I had to re-read a couple of times that they were glass. I would love to see those.
kalki says:
OMG, we saw this exhibit last weekend when we were in Boston. So incredible!!! And the tiger lilly was my favorite.
LadyBug says:
Amazing. Just…wow. What patience and dedication. Thanks for sharing this, Danielle.