The Blaschka family's roots trace to Josephthal in Erzgebirge, Bohemia, a region known for processing glass, metals, and gems.

[2][3][4] Leopold referred to this history in an 1889 letter to Mary Lee Ware: Many people think that we have some secret apparatus by which we can squeeze glass suddenly into these forms, but it is not so.

Leopold was apprenticed to a goldsmith and gem cutter in Turnov, a town in the Liberec Region of today's Czech Republic.

[2] Leopold developed a technique which he termed "glass-spinning" which permitted the construction of highly precise and detailed works in glass.

[10]On his return to Český Dub, Leopold focused on producing glass eyes, costume ornaments, lab equipment, and other goods and specialty items whose production was expected of master lampworkers.

[11] Eventually, however, the models attracted the attention of Prince Camille de Rohan, who arranged to meet with Leopold at Sychrov Castle in 1857.

[8] Prince Camille, an enthusiast of natural sciences, commissioned Leopold to craft 100 glass orchids for his private collection.

[2] In 1862, "the prince exhibited about 100 models of orchids and other exotic plants, which he displayed on two artificial tree trunks in his palace in Prague.

"[10][8] This royal commission brought Blaschka's craft to the attention of Professor Ludwig Reichenbach,[12] then director of the Natural History Museum in Dresden.

In the nineteenth century, the dominant method of displaying preserved marine invertebrates was wet-preservation, which involved taking a live specimen and placing it in a sealed jar, usually filled with alcohol.

[2] A year after the success of the glass sea anemones, the family moved to Dresden to give young Rudolf better educational opportunities.

In 1886, Goodale, traveled to Dresden to meet with the Blaschkas and request a series of glass botanical models for Harvard.

[16] Goodale was convinced that Blaschka's glass art was a worthy investment for Harvard, which was a global centre for the study of botany.

Pressed plant specimens were two-dimensional and tended to lose their color and form, making them difficult to use as accurate teaching tools.

"[22] To resolve this, the Blaschkas signed an exclusive ten-year contract with Harvard to make glass flowers for 8,800 marks per year.

In total, up to 164 taxonomic families and a diversity of plant part morphologies, including flowers, leaves, fruits, and roots, were created.

[1] Goodale noted that the activity of the Blaschkas was "greatly increased by their exclusive devotion to a single line of work.

"[22] Writing for the Annual reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College 1890-1891: It has been only within a comparatively short time that I have discovered the cause of the great reluctance of the elder Blaschka to the undertaking at the outset.

The first set of models passed through various vicissitudes, and finally found a home in the Natural History Museum in Liège, where they were at last destroyed by fire.

In a letter she later wrote to the second director of the Botanical Museum, Professor Oakes Ames, she observed how "one change in the character of [Rudolf's] work and, consequently in the time necessary to accomplish results since I was last here, is very noteworthy.

"[6][25] In addition to funding and visiting the project, Mary took an active role in its progress, going so far as to personally unpack each model and make arrangements for Rudolph's fieldwork in the U.S. and Jamaica.