Dear James Hamilton (and other interested list-members)
I'm delighted to learn of your collection because I'm currently completing a study of the models of Adolf and Friedrich Ziegler, their production in Freiburg between 1851 and 1936, and their uses among embryologists and others. You probably know that in this period modelling was a key means of representation in embryology and that the firm dominated the academic market in embryological waxes. For me, this is part of a wider project on history of the embryology, an early fruit of which will appear in the September 1999 issue of ISIS under the title '"Giving Body" to Embryos: Modelling, Mechanism and the Microtome in Late Nineteenth-Century Anatomy'.
More relevantly for you, I hope by the end of the year to have finished an edited reprint of Friedrich Ziegler's major illustrated catalogue (from a copy held in the Medizinhistorisches Institut Bern), to be published by the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge and the Bern Institute under the title EMBRYOS IN WAX: THE MODELS OF ADOLF AND FRIEDRICH ZIEGLER. A major aim is to provide people like yourself with the documentation that has usually been separated from the models, including a table listing the Zieglers' production, with an extended historical introduction. I am not free to distribute copies of the catalogue in advance of publication, but if you needed advice on the identity or dates of particular models before the reprint appears, I'm sure we could find a way in which I could help.
Obviously, I'd be interested to see your models, and to learn of any surviving correspondence, etc. concerning their purchase, or photos, etc. of their display. I'd also be very pleased to hear from other members of this list who might have models or associated material in their care (especially but not only the botanical series). I have visited some fine collections on the continent, but I am still on the look-out for particularly well preserved examples of the more important series from which to make colour photographs, and any record of dealings with the Zieglers or the uses of the models would help a lot.
On your questions about conservation--not my field!--I have looked hard for but not found any information on type of wax or dyes in the Ziegler models. (Nothing appears to have been published on this, and no company archive seems to have survived.) The only work I know that contains relevant information on conservation is La ceroplastica nella scienza e nellšarte (Atti del I Congresso Internazionale), 2 vols, Florence: Olschki, 1977, conference proceedings in various languages including English, held e.g. in the Wellcome Institute Library. However, the Department of Anatomy at Guy's has recently employed a modeller to restore some of their Ziegler models, so it might be worth contacting them.
I hope this is useful and that I'll hear from you.
Best wishes
Nick Hopwood
______________________________
Dr Nick Hopwood
Lecturer in History of Modern Science
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
Free School Lane
Cambridge CB2 3RH
Tel: +44 1223 334542
Fax: +44 1223 334554
> [log in to unmask]
--On Wed, Apr 21, 1999 8:43 pm +0100 "Chaplin, Simon" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> (posted for James Hamilton)
>
> The University of Birmingham has in its pathology museum a large collection
> of wax models showing embryological development by Friedrich Ziegler of
> Freiburg. Similar collections exist in one or two museums in the UK, and
> presumably the models themselves are not particularly rare. However, is
> anybody able to provide more information on them (dates of manufacture,
> locations of trade catalogues or other sources of information etc)? Also any
> information of the constituents of the wax used to manufacture them and the
> dyes/paints used would help the planning of future conservation work.
>
> Replies should be sent to James Hamilton ([log in to unmask]) or, if
> they are likely to be of general interest, to the list.
>
>
> Simon Chaplin
> Museums of The Royal College of Surgeons of England
>
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