Dr. Robert John Thornton (c. 1765 - 1832)
Temple of Flora; or Garden of Nature
Large folio: handcolored engraved plates
London, 1798-1812. 22 x 18 inches
When Dr. Robert Thornton (ca.1765-1832) inherited the family fortune in 1797, he left his medical practice to indulge his lifelong passion for botany. The finest botanical books had heretofore been published on the Continent. Thornton, determined to surpass the Germans in scholarship and the French in printing artistry, planned a book of philosophic and literary distinction, illustrated by some of the best painters working in Britain. In homage to the great Swedish naturalist, it was titled The Temple of Flora; or Garden of Mature Picturesque Botanical Plates of the New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. The first sections appeared in 1799; the edition was completed in 1807.
For the huge plates, Thornton commissioned a few artists (Sydenham, Edwards, and James Sowerby) who specialized in botanical work, as well as well-known painters such as Abraham “Moonlight” Pether, who painted the midnight landscape behind “The Night-Blooming Cereus.” Thornton painted the model for the “Roses”; the majority of designs were done by Peter Henderson and Philip Reinagle. The intaglio plates - a varied combination of mezzotint, aquatint, line and stipple engraving, finished with watercolor - were executed by Bartolazzi and other English masters. The lengthy text was primarily written by Thornton himself. Despite desperate attempts to raise money in order to complete the project, including the creation of a quarto version in 1812, as a lottery prize, the costly process of making these prints bankrupted Thornton when he was one-third of the way toward his goal of 90 images.
The title notwithstanding, few of the plates are of scientific interest. It is the forceful stylization of flowers, together with their historical, allegorical and/or fanciful backgrounds (prescribed by Thornton) that place the Temple of Flora among the greatest botanical books of all time. Dr. Thornton, who gave his life and his fortune to this work, created one of England’s monuments to Romantic idealism.