Thornton Aquatint, Persian Cyclamen

THORNTON, Robert J. (1768-1837).
The Persian Cyclamen.
Aquatint, mezzotint stiple, line engraving with original hand color.
From the Temple of Flora; Or Garden of Natue.
London, 1799-1807.
22 7/8" x 17 1/2" sheet.
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 Nature: 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.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.