{"product_id":"wilson-bentley-snowflake-no-920-c-1890-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Wilson Bentley: Snowflake No. 920, c. 1890 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWilson A. Bentley (1865–1931)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSnowflake No. 920\u003c\/em\u003e, c. 1890\u003cbr\u003ePhotomicrograph\u003cbr\u003ePublic collection\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain (CC0)\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson Bentley was a farmer in Jericho, Vermont, in the snowbelt — about three metres of snow a year. His mother taught him at home. For his fifteenth birthday, in 1880, he was given a microscope. He spent the next years trying to draw what he saw in it, and failing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen he connected a bellows camera to the microscope. In 1885, aged nineteen, he made the first photograph of a snow crystal that anyone had ever made.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe apparatus stood outdoors, because indoors the specimens melted. He waited in the cold, caught the falling flakes on a board, moved them under the lens with a feather, and exposed for a minute and a half. He did this for forty-six winters and photographed more than five thousand crystals. From that collection came the sentence everyone now repeats without knowing whose it was: no two are alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis one is built in two rings. At the centre sits a small six-pointed star; around it, a ring of broad, curving plates, folded like ribbon. From there six long arms reach outward and break into fern-like fronds, each side branch at the same sixty-degree angle as the arm it grows from. The crystal was on the ground for a few seconds and then gone; the photograph is all that is left of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley blacked out the background around each crystal so that it stands alone on a dark field. That is why the snowflake sits in a black disc. The plate was made around 1890 and is catalogued as No. 920. It survives in a public collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The picture sits on the front; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/de\/products\/wilson-bentley-snowflake-1905-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eSnowflake No. 815, c. 1890\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/de\/products\/wilson-bentley-snowflake-no-1152-c-1890-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eSnowflake No. 1152, c. 1890\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/de\/products\/wilson-bentley-frost-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eFrost, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/de\/products\/wilson-bentley-dew-spider-web-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eDew on a Spider Web, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson A. Bentley (1865–1931), Snowflake No. 920, c. 1890. Photomicrograph. Public domain (CC0).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":59188404224331,"sku":"c37e9a15-b38d-4805-8169-efd84f664983","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/tazzarte-wilson-bentley-snowflake-no-920-c-1890-porcelain-art-mug-main-3d.jpg?v=1794206218","url":"https:\/\/tazzarte.com\/de\/products\/wilson-bentley-snowflake-no-920-c-1890-porcelain-art-mug","provider":"Tazzarte","version":"1.0","type":"link"}