Temple of Flora. or Garden of the Botanist, Poet, Painter and Philosopher,

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The Most Spectacular Botanical Print Book of its Era. First quarto edition, large quarto, [45] leaves, engraved title on two leaves, hand coloured allegorical aquatint frontispieces, two uncoloured engraved plates (the first by Maddocks after Russel and Opie, the second by Bartolozzi and Landseer after Reinagle), and twenty eight stipple engraved, mezzotint, or aquatint colour botanical plates by Wm. Dunkarton, R. Rosse, Gaugain, Staeler, Quilley, Maddox, Roffe, D. Maddan, Stadler, after Pether, R.J. Thornton, S. Edwards, Reinagle, Henderson, some hand coloured, some partially printed in colours and finished by hand (including The Persian Cyclamen, not found in some copies). Text watermarked 1810 and 1811; plates watermarked 1811. Contemporary full black straight grain morocco, covers with gilt and blind stamped borders, three spine compartments densely gilt tooled, the other two with gilt lettering, gilt board edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, front joint expertly repaired. (377*300 mm). (Dunthorpe 302. Great Flower Books p77. Plesch p433). The high point of Romantic era botanical books and the first floral prints with landscape backgrounds. In 1798 there appeared the first of a series of some thirty large colour plates which are unique in that they produce the first flower prints with landscape backgrounds, depicting the natural habitat of the plant. The life size flowers stand forth dramatically and the whole effect is startlingly modern. This large folio, entitled The Temple of Flora or New Illustrations of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, was published by Dr Robert John Thornton a lecturer on medical botany at Guy's Hospital in London. His announced intention was to make this work the most magnificent tribute ever paid to the famous Swedish botanist by illustrating his Sexual System with the finest possible prints. It was a work on which no expense was spared. Such important artists were employed to produce the designs as Reinagle, Pether, Hernderson and Sydenham Edwards. The best of the contemporary engravers, numbering among the mezzo tinters the well known Ward, Earlom, and Dunkarton, and among the aquatint engravers, Stadler and Sutherland, were engaged tp prepare the plates.... By appealing to Parliament [Thornton] was authorised to hold a lottery in 1811, and to issue twenty thousand tickets at two guineas each: the value of the prizes amounting to seventy thousand pounds. The first prize.... consisted of the original paintings for the Temple of Flora. The 2nd prize were complete sets of the colour prints. The 3rd, some of Thornton's botanical writings..... A beautiful copy with the plates clean and vivid and virtually no offsetting.