John Thornton | New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus... the Temple of Flora, [1799-] 1807 [-1812], 3 parts in one volume, contemporary diced russia gilt

John Thornton

New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus... the Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature.. London: for the Publisher, by T. Bensley, [1799-] 1807 [-1812]

3 parts in one volume, folio (557 x 441 mm).

Part 1: engraved half-title ("A British Trophy..."), engraved portrait of Thornton by Bartolozzi after Russell, engraved additional title ("A New Illustration..."), engraved portrait of Linnaeus by Meyer after Hollman and Bartolozzi, title-page (dated 1807), engraved portrait of Queen Charlotte by Bartolozzi after Beechy, engraved dedication to the Queen, 3 engraved tables, engraved part-title ("The Prize Dissertation..."), engraved plate of "The Universal Power of Love", engraved portrait of Sir Thomas Millington, engraved plate of "Farina of Flowers...".

Part 2: engraved part-title, mezzotint portrait of Linnaeus in Lapland dress by Dunkarton after Hoffman (Dunthorne's state A), 2 engraved tables.

Part 3: engraved title on 2 sheets (dated 1799), engraved table of contents, engraved dedication on 2 sheets, engraved part-title, 31 engraved plates, comprising: 3 coloured frontispieces ("Flora Dispensing her Favours on Earth", "Aesculapius, Flora, Ceres and Cupid...", and "Cupid Inspiring the Plants with Love" ) and 28 botanical plates ("The Snowdrop" (Dunthorne's first state), "The Persian Cyclamen" (first state), "Hyacinths" (second state), "Roses" (first state), "A Group of Carnations" (first state), "A Group of Auriculas" (two auriculas only, second state), "Tulips" (apparently a trial state, no caption for title), "The Queen", "The Aloe" (first state), "The Nodding Renealmea" (first state), "The Night-Blowing Cereus" (first state), "The oblique-leaved Begonia" (first state), "Large Flowering Sensitive Plant" (first state), "The Blue Passion Flower" (first state), "The Winged Passion Flower" (first state), "The Quadrangular Passion-Flower" (first state), "The White Lily with Variegated Leaves" (third state), "The Superb Lily" (plate B: "the Earlom plate", third state), "The Dragon Arum" (second state), "The Dragon-Bearing Stapella" (second state), "American Bog Plants" (second state), "The Pontic Rhododendron", "The American Cowslip" (first state), "The Narrow-leaved Kalmia", "The China Limodoron", "Indian Reed" (first state: with the additional hand-painted petals), "The Sacred Egyptian Bean", "The Blue Egyptian Water-Lily"), contemporary diced russia gilt, spine with raised bands in seven compartments, gilt edges, brown endpapers, some spotting and browning, "Dragon Arum" plate with closed tear along top of platemark, endleaves creased, rebacked retaining original spine, old staining to covers, extremities rubbed

ONE OF THE GRANDEST AND MOST SUMPTUOUS OF THE ENGLISH BOTANICAL BOOKS, COUCHED IN THE ROMANTIC IDIOM, A HANDSOME COPY IN A CONTEMPORARY BINDING WITH MANY PLATES IN THE FIRST STATE, AND THE "TULIPS" PLATE APPARENTLY IN A TRIAL STATE.

Conceived on a grandiose scale, New Illustration was to comprise three parts: a dissertation on the sexual reproductive cycle of plants; an explanation of Linnæus's plant system, lavishly illustrated with botanical plates and portraits of botanists; and "The Temple of Flora," which was to have no less than 70 large plates of exotic plant species arranged according to the classification system of Linnæus. Each species was to appear in its native environment.

The production of the plates for "The Temple of Flora" involved a variety of techniques—aquatint, mezzotint, stipple engraving, and stippling with line engraving, or etching, which required the participation of a large number of artists. Among those commissioned by Thornton were Philip Reinagle, who executed most of the preparatory drawings; Abraham Pether, known for his moody quasi-Gothic landscapes; Sydenham Edwards and Peter Henderson; and the engravers Richard Earlom, James Caldwall, and Thomas Burke. Only the plate of the Rose was drawn by Thornton and executed by Earlom.

In spite of using a host of artists and engravers, Thornton managed to "maintain a remarkable homogeneity of style throughout" (Oak Spring Flora), but production was a protracted stop-and-go affair, causing the text and plates to appear irregularly, and to bring Thornton ultimately to the brink of personal bankruptcy.

For his contribution to English botanical illustration, Thornton has been compared to Redouté by Alan Thomas: "[M]ore or less coeval with Redouté in France came the production of the greatest English colour-plate flower book. … What Redouté produced under the patronage of L'Héritier, Marie Antionette, the Empress Josephine, Charles X and the Duchesse de Berry, Thornton set out to do alone. … The result was almost total failure. … His fortune was engulfed and his family reduced to penury. … It is easy to raise one's eyebrows at Thornton's unworldly and injudicious approach to publishing … but he produced … the most strikingly beautiful set of flower plates ever to be printed in England [and] one of the loveliest books in the world" (Great Books and Book Collectors, pp. 142–144).

Yet, as its enduring appeal proves, Thornton's vision transcends the genre. That a book of botanical illustration could come to summarize the Age of Romanticism is a tribute to imaginative genius in aesthetic crossed with scientific inquiry. "To arrive at Thornton is to boil down all the diversities of the time in architecture, poetry, painting, fiction, music, from Walpole and Sir William Chambers to Shelley and the music of Weber, by way of Chatterton writing in Gothic or African mood of Medieval Bristol or reeking tigers, by way of the wild imaginings of Turner, or Martin or Francis Danby, by way of elements even in Blake, in Coleridge, in Wordsworth. An age is packed into these folio plates which Thornton directed" (Geoffrey Grigson in Thornton's Temple of Flora, p. 12).

REFERENCE:

Dunthorne 301; Grigson and Buchanan, Thornton's Temple of Flora (1951); Nissen 1955; Stafleu TL2 14.283.

PROVENANCE:

Christopher Tower: bookplate