Director of the natural history museum in Dresden, Prof. Reichenbach was faced with an annoying yet seemingly unsolvable problem in regards to showing marine life. Land-based flora and fauna was not an issue, for it was a relatively simple matter to exhibit mounted and stuffed creatures such as gorillas and elephants, their lifelike poses attracting and exciting the museum's visitors. Invertebrates, however, by their very nature, posed a problem. In the 19th century the only practiced method of showcasing them was to take a live specimen and place it in a sealed jar of alcohol. This of course killed it but, more importantly, time and their lack of hard parts eventually rendered them into little more than colorless floating blobs of jelly. Neither pretty nor a terribly effective teaching tool, Prof. Reichenbach wanted something more, specifically 3D colored models of marine invertebrates that were both lifelike and able to stand the test of time. By coincidence, in 1863, he "saw an exhibition of highly detailed, realistic glass flowers created by a Bohemian lampworker named Leopold Blaschka."