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Thornton (Robert John) The Temple of Flora

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3 vol. in 2, engraved titles (lacking the first sheet of 2-sheet title to the plate vol), dedications, vol 1 with 2 allegorical plates, Cupid, Flora, Ceres and Esculapius Honouring the Bust of Linnaeus (this with a crease), and Cupid Inspiring Plants with Love, frontispiece portrait of Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, 16 other portraits on 14 sheets, and 40 botanical plates and tables, all uncoloured, some spotting and browning throughout; vol 2 with 15 coloured plates only, mixed-method engravings, part-printed in colours and finished by hand, first or second states if not single states, on heavy wove paper, a few indistinctly showing Whatman watermarks, one faintly dated 180?, each average 430 x 560mm., the impressions generally good with the colours strong and bright, some light spotting and browning, some surface dirt and dust, occasional offsetting of image onto text, but The Oblique-leaved Begonia with text title offset into pigment oxidisation of upper sky, The Nodding Renealmia with a crease across the upper left corner, also with pigment oxidisation in the sky, The Night-Blowing Cereus with a short open tear in the left margin, well outside the plate, a few other plates with a short repaired tear also in the left margin, later uniform half-calf over slightly differing cloth boards, rubbed, folio and large folio, 1799- .

***The plates present are: The Superb Lily (Ward plate); The Aloe; Large Flowering Sensitive Plant; The Night-Blowing Cereus (Dunthorne's plate A), The White Lily with Variagated-leaves; The Oblique-leaved Begonia; The American Cowslip; The China Limodoron; The Nodding Renealmia; The Dragon Arum; The Quadrangular Passion-Flower; The Blue Passion Flower; The Winged Passion-Flower; The Pontic Rhododendron; Hyacinths..

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