The story of the Blaschkas begins in the small town of Böhmisch Aicha (now Cˇesky´ Dub in the Czech Republic), where Leopold’s father continued the family tradition of flameworking. When Leopold was a student, his favorite  subjects were natural history and painting, and a visiting artist urged him to pursue a career in art. However, after serving an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and gem cutter in nearby Turnau (now Turnov), Leopold entered the family business of making costume jewelry and other fancy goods out of metal and flameworked glass.

Before the development of high-speed moving image media, or fiberglass, naturalists and educators faced a quandary: it was often impossible to demonstrate exactly what an invertebrate looked like without a live specimen, because the spine collapses and color leaches out of one preserved in