In 1850, the father, at the request of his son, made an incredible menagerie (13 photos)

Until now, not a single specialist knows how to do this!





It is believed that the highest skill is manifested in the “Wow!” effect. When you approach a master’s work and freeze, unable to move. We should probably agree with this opinion, but every rule has its exceptions.

And today I will tell you about a person, not even two people, who did not set out to surprise someone or prove their superiority: they knew that they were the best, so they simply did their job.

When a person approaches their work, they do not evoke any delight. Absolutely! But when he finds out what these works are made of, that’s when the same effect appears.

There lived in the mid-19th century in Bohemia (Czech Republic) a young glassblower named Leopold Blaschka: the son of a jeweler, the grandson of a jeweler, the great-grandson of a jeweler. The master is in the fifth generation - his grandfather was considered the MOST titled master of the country. He was like all the craftsmen of that time: he blew vases, cut glasses, made dishes and jewelry.

However, to his misfortune (I can’t even call it happiness), cholera came to the small town.

In just one week, the young master lost his father, brothers, wife and child. He himself sought death, went to the houses of the sick, but cholera did not take him!

Since there was nothing holding him back in the half-empty city, Leopold decided to leave not just the country, but to another continent altogether. He boarded a sailboat and went to the USA. However, exactly in the middle of his journey, the young master had to make an unplanned stop: since there was complete calm, the ship was laid up for two weeks near the Azores.









During these two weeks, the grief-stricken Leopold witnessed a very interesting natural phenomenon: every evening around the ship, from the depths of the ocean, myriads of tropical (or some kind of) jellyfish emerged, which in complete darkness shimmered with bright luminescent colors.

And this picture was repeated every night!

But all good things come to an end. The wind blew and Leopold's ship departed towards the USA, where the young master spent several long years.

They say time heals... and so it happened. Returning from the states, Leopold did not want to stay in his hometown, and moved to Dresden, where he did what he knew how to do best - opened a glass-blowing workshop. A year later he got married and had a son, Rudolf. Remembering what had already happened, the father literally shook over his son. He spent every minute of his free time with him, and when the boy grew up, his father began to take him with him to the workshop.





They began to spend even more time together. One day, a father told his son what he once managed to see from aboard a ship. And the son asked:

- Paaap, can you make these jellyfish out of glass?

-I can... probably.

Couldn't a hereditary glassblower and jeweler have done this?

He did! First alone, and then with my son. At first, his jellyfish and other reptiles were not very similar to real ones, but then they went to the Dresden Aquarium, sketched real jellyfish and decided to repeat them exactly.

TWO OF THEM!

FATHER AND SON!

Their collection grew and expanded, they corresponded with scientists around the world, asked them to sketch jellyfish and other marine life, and they were answered.



A few years later, the inevitable happened: their unusual hobby was noticed. It turned out that scientists had long suffered from one unsolvable problem: it was impossible to preserve endangered marine life for museums. Alcoholization in jars did not allow the color to be preserved.



Then father and son - Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka - began to receive orders to make the most unusual sea inhabitants from colored glass. And they began to carry them out with maximum precision.



It got to the point that customers could not find a single difference between the sent jellyfish and the real one; octopuses, cuttlefish, sea anemones, fish and thousands of other inhabitants of the depths looked as if they were alive.



The craftsmen invented a special method of “glass spinning”, when any, even the smallest fiber, could be given any shape and, most importantly, color. The masters had about 5,400 colors and shades in their arsenal. In terms of color work, they were able to outdo even Louis Comfort Tiffany.



Until now, not a single researcher of their work, not a single craftsman, technologist, chemist - NO ONE - has been able to determine how and with what help they could paint any hair of glass not just any color, but any exact specified shade. How from one color another can be seen literally on a millimeter area.



Needless to say, such filigree work between father and son paid very well. With the money received for the models, they were able to build a large two-story house and a spacious workshop.



However, such “precise” creativity of Czech masters played a cruel joke on them: many unscrupulous craftsmen wanted to steal the “glass spinning” technology, so Leopold and Rudolf closed themselves off from competitors and did not let anyone into their lives.

But that’s not all: since they worked mainly with museums, even ordinary people, for whom a vase or cool cutlery is more important than a jellyfish, their names remained practically unknown. For the most part, only specialists, restorers and individual connoisseurs are familiar with their work. And ordinary people, walking past wonderful jellyfish and octopuses in some European museums, do not even suspect that they are actually made of glass.