Models have long been used in biological and medical education. Some of them are not merely functional but are exquisite works of art in their own right. The University of Aberdeen Zoology Museum is fortunate in having in its collections models made by some of the greatest exponents of the art.

Louis Auzoux

Leopold Blashcka

Rudolf Blaschka

Emile Deyrolle

Louis Auzoux (1797-1880) was a French medical school graduate and was the pre-eminent maker of plaster and papier mâché models during the 19th century. He developed anatomically accurate models of body structures out of papier mâché, calling these mock-ups anatomy clastique (from the Greek word klastos, which means broken in pieces), because they could be taken apart and reassembled by the student. Our model of a horse hoof was made in 1879 is labelled in French and is made of several parts each of which can be removed to show anatomical details of bones, ligaments, muscles, nerves and blood vessels in different parts of the lower leg and hoof.

In the 1880s father and son Leopold (1822-1895) and Rudolf Blaschka (1857-1939) ran a small workshop in Dresden, Germany. At their height they had salesmen working across Europe and North America and as far a field as Japan and India. Initially, they made costume jewellery and glass eyes for the blind and for taxidermists who were enjoying a period of great demand and prosperity in the late 1800s. However, during 1863 they started to make exquisite glass models of marine invertebrates and flowers and these soon became their main business. The glass models of animals and plants produced by the Blaschkas are truly works of art and must surely rank as some of the very best ever produced. Our museum has in its collections over 40 of these glass marvels.

Robert and his son Reinhold Brendel produced beautiful and accurate models of enlarged flowers at Breslau and Berlin. Usually, the models were made of papier mâché, but with other materials added to give detail and texture: wood, cotton, rattan, pulp cane, glass beads, feathers and gelatine. Reinhold was decorated with the Prussian silver state medal in appreciation of his business activities. The University of Aberdeen has over 150 of the models including an exquisite model of the insectivorous plant, The Venus Fly Trap.

The French naturalist Emile Deyrolle sold collections of specimens for the amateur naturalist and a wide range of teaching models for primary and secondary education. He founded his shop in 1831 and moved to its current location on the Rue du Bac in Paris, the former home of Louis XIV’s banker, in 1881. The shop is now owned by Le Prince Jardinier, and does a brisk trade in mounted butterflies, beetles, and other insects. It also offers taxidermy services, and for a few hundred euros you can have your dead dog or cat stuffed. The Museum has some excellent wax models of insects and other invertebrates.

Today, the tradition of model making still flourishes using modern synthetic materials. The Zoology Museum has examples of some of the very best of these contemporary models including resin casts of the skulls of extinct sabrecats and other vertebrates by Bone Clones® of California.