Botanical model of a pear or apple blossom (Pyrus malus) by Brendel

Botanical model of a pear or apple blossom (Pyrus malus) by the Brendel workshops.
Papier-mâché and wood.
Germany.
ca.?1900
h. 20.9 in.

Botanical model in papier-mâché representing a pear–apple blossom (Pyrus malus), handcrafted in the early years of the 20th century by artisans working in the workshops founded by Robert Brendel and, at the time, directed by his son Reinhold Brendel in Grünewald, near Berlin.

The name Pyrus malus, now obsolete, reflects an earlier usage in pre-Linnaean botanical nomenclature, when the distinction between pears (Pyrus) and apples (Malus) had not yet been formally established. This ambiguity in the classification of pear and apple trees persisted well into the 19th century, where Pyrus malus still appears in certain herbals and botanical manuals.

Founded in Breslau in 1866 by Robert Brendel, the Brendel workshops had established themselves by the early 1870s as leading producers of “clastic” botanical models—that is, models designed to be taken apart—intended for teaching botany in university faculties of biology and pharmacy. Made primarily of papier-mâché, wood, and wire, these models aimed to represent plant structures with scientific precision and at enlarged scale. After Robert Brendel’s death in 1898, the workshop was taken over by his son Reinhold, who relocated it to Grünewald and continued its expansion. Under his direction, Brendel models received a medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, following previous awards in Moscow (1872), Cologne (1890), and Chicago (1893) under his father.

This model belongs to the second phase of the workshop’s production, under Reinhold Brendel, from which point onward the earlier varnished and moulded wooden bases were replaced by more austere black-painted wooden stands. Like many didactic models of this period, it presents several successive stages in the development of the pear–apple blossom, including a longitudinal section alongside a fully opened flower.

Rare and fragile, Brendel flower and fruit models are held primarily in natural history museums and university collections. Examples can be found in the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.), the universities of Bologna and Florence, the National Museums Liverpool, and the University of Lille.

Sources

Alexander Tschirch, Erläuterungen zu den botanischen Modellen von Robert Brendel, Berlin, 1885; Reinhold Brendel, Preisliste über Botanische Modelle gefertigt und herausgegeben von R. Brendel, Berlin, 1900; Grazinia Fiorini, Luana Maekawa and Peter Stiberc, “Save the Plants: Conservation of Brendel Anatomical Botany Models,” Florence, 2008.