Blaschka

Leopold Blaschka (27 May 1822 – 3 July 1895) and his son Rudolf Blaschka (17 June 1857 – 1 May 1939) were Dresden, Germany glass artists native to the Bohemian (Czech)–German borderland, known for the production of biological models such as the glass sea creatures and their more famous successors the Glass Flowers.

The Blaschka family is old in honor and skill in world of glass artistry - originating from Josefuv Dul (Antoniwald) in the Iser or Izera Mountains, a region known for processing glass, metals and gems - their business having spanned more than 300 years, working in Venice, Bohemia (in an area now in the Czech Republic) and Germany by the time Leopold and Rudolf achieved fame. This, unquestionably, is the root of Leopold's famous quote - written in an 1889 letter to Mary Lee Ware - regarding the source of his skill: "Many people think that we have some secret apparatus by which we can squeeze glass suddenly into these forms, but it is not so. We have tact. My son Rudolf has more than I have, because he is my son, and tact increases in every generation. The only way to become a glass modeler of skill, I have often said to people, is to get a good great-grandfather who loved glass; then he is to have a son with like tastes; he is to be your grandfather. He in turn will have a son who must, as your father, be passionately fond of glass. You, as his son, can then try your hand, and it is your own fault if you do not succeed. But, if you do not have such ancestors, it is not your fault. My grandfather was the most widely known glassworker in Bohemia."

Born in Český Dub, Bohemia, and one of Joseph Blaschke's three sons, Leopold, alone of his brothers, displayed the necessary artistic skills as a child, and was apprenticed to a goldsmith and gemcutter in Turnov, a town in the Liberec Region of today's Czech Republic. He then joined the family business, which produced glass ornaments and glass eyes. He developed a technique which he termed "glass-spinning", which permitted the construction of highly precise and detailed works in glass. He also Latinised his family name to "Blaschka", and began to focus the business on the manufacture of glass eyes.

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