Botanical model of a Mauve des bois (Malva sylvestris) by Robert Brendel

Papier-mâché, wood.
Germany.
ca. 1870.
h. 11 in.

Botanical Model of a Mauve des bois (Malva sylvestris), designed around 1870 in the Robert Brendel workshops in Breslau, just a few years after the founding of the Brendel workshops.

The Robert Brendel workshops quickly became famous in the second half of the 19th century for their botanically accurate models of flowers and plants made from wood and papier-mâché. The numerous medals and distinctions awarded to the company reflect this reputation and its international scope: prizes in Moscow in 1872, Cologne in 1890, and especially Chicago during the famous 1893 World's Fair, as well as seven years later at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, where the distinction was awarded to Reinhold Brendel, Robert Brendel’s son, who took over the business after his father's death two years earlier. The Brendel botanical models were celebrated for nearly half a century for their educational value and their usefulness in teaching botany at universities across Europe and America.

Rare and fragile, most Brendel flower models are now preserved in natural history museums or prestigious university collections. Examples can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., the universities of Bologna and Florence, the National Museum of Liverpool, and the University of Lille.

This particular model is likely one of the earliest models created by Robert Brendel and his collaborators, notably the pharmacist Carl Leopold Lohmeyer and the botanist Ferdinand Julius Cohn. The oldest Malva sylvestris models preserved in public collections date from 1880 and already feature a very different form, in line with the description given by Professor Alexander Tschirch in his 1885 Erläuterungen (Explanations) of the Brendel models. This model, however, is almost certainly older than these models, one of which is preserved at the University of Bologna. It retains the same catalog number, still visible on the base of the flower, though very worn by time : No. 92, in the VII section reserved for the 'Wald- und Wiesenblumen, Unkräuter und phanerogame Schmarotzer’ **(Forest and meadow flowers, weeds, and phanerogamous parasites).

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.