Fruits in Decay, a new special exhibit in the Glass Flowers gallery at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, explores blight, rot, and other diseases on summer fruits. It features exquisitely detailed glass botanical models of strawberries, peaches, apricots, plums, and pears made by famed glass artist Rudolf Blaschka.
The Glass Flowers Team, Jennfier Brown, Collection Manager, Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, Scott Fulton, Conservator, Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, and Donald H. Pfister, Curator of the Farlow Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany and Asa Gray Professor of Systematic Botany, worked with Harvard Museum of Natural History staff for months on the exhibit. Pfister notes the models "are the culmination of [Rudolf Blaschka’s] lifelong attention to accuracy and innovation. They illustrate the effects of fungi as agents of disease in plants and point to their importance in agricultural systems.”
The exhibit will be on display through March 1, 2020.
Harvard Museum of Natural History: https://hmnh.harvard.edu/fruits-decay