The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Large Flowering Sensitive Plant, Plate 16

1799

Joseph Constantine Stadler

(German, active 1780–1822)

after Philip Reinagle

(British, 1749–1833)
publisher

Robert John Thornton

(British, 1768–1837)
England, late 18th-early 19th Century
Etching with printed and hand-applied color, aquatint, stipple, and engraving
Image: 44.2 x 35.8 cm (17 3/8 x 14 1/8 in.); Plate: 47.5 x 36 cm (18 11/16 x 14 3/16 in.); Sheet: 53.5 x 43.9 cm (21 1/16 x 17 5/16 in.)
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland in honor of Mrs. William G. Mather 1955.479
Catalogue raisonné: Dunthorne 301, p. 248; Nissen 1955
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

In The Temple of Flora, this print was accompanied by a scientific description and a poem written by Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather).

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.
  • ?–1955
    (Vixseboxse Art Galleries, Inc., Cleveland, OH, to The Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH)
    November 21, 1955–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Glaubinger, Jane. “Flower Power: The history of botanical prints has deep roots.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 3 (May/June 2016): 10-12. Reproduced: p. 10; Mentioned: p. 12 archive.org
  • Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
    The Flowering of the Botanical Print. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-July 3, 2016).
    The Perennial Garden: 18th and 19th Century Botanical Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 3-July 31, 1983).
    Flower and Fruit Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 25-October 10, 1960).
  • {{cite web|title=Large Flowering Sensitive Plant, Plate 16|url=false|author=Joseph Constantine Stadler, Philip Reinagle, Robert John Thornton|year=1799|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1955.479