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Artwork Page for The American Cowslip, Plate 26

Details / Information for The American Cowslip, Plate 26

The Temple of Flora; or Garden of Nature. Picturesque Botanical Plates of the New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus

The American Cowslip, Plate 26

1801
(English, active 1790–1828)
(British, 1771–1829)
(British, 1768–1837)
England, late 18th-early 19th Century
Etching with printed and hand-applied color, aquatint, stipple, and engraving
Image: 44.7 x 35.7 cm (17 5/8 x 14 1/16 in.); Sheet: 55.3 x 46 cm (21 3/4 x 18 1/8 in.)
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in memory of Mrs. Ralph King 1952.213
Catalogue raisonné: Dunthorne 301, p. 250; Nissen 1955
Location: 101B Prints & Drawings
Public Domain
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Did You Know?

Each plant in The Temple of Flora was paired with a scientific description of its reproductive system and a poem.

Description

Fueled by scientific and colonial expeditions that brought back plant specimens from across the globe, the science of botany blossomed in Enlightenment Europe. This print is from a sumptuously illustrated treatise known as The Temple of Flora. Commissioned and published by Dr. Robert John Thornton, a British medical botanist, the work illustrates the new plant classification system of Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. Yet while these prints realistically depict buds, flowers, and leaves, they show them in environments where they did not actually grow. Instead, Thornton had the artists situate specimens in imagined landscapes, often reminiscent of British colonial holdings, which he felt better suited the plants
The American Cowslip, Plate 26

The American Cowslip, Plate 26

1801

Thomas Warner, Peter Charles Henderson, Robert John Thornton

(English, active 1790–1828), (British, 1771–1829), (British, 1768–1837)
England, late 18th-early 19th Century

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