1956 botanical lithograph THORNTON NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS limited to 1750 copies printed on Gelderland white cartridge 'The Beauties of Flora' Painted by T. Baxter stipple engraving by Hopwood background aquatinted by Lewis FRAMED WITH 2 MATS 27" X 20"
Item: BO5
VERY RARE HUGE FOLIO PLATE 14
DOUBLE-MATTED, AND FRAMED IN A HAND-PAINTED FRAME BY ARTIST
"NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS"
THORNTON
We recently closed our gallery of rare antique books and prints, original signed art
and unique hand painted frames, some of the prints and art framed,
some not, and all our artwork and antique prints will be listed here daily as we go.
INSPECT CAREFULLY TO BE SATISFIED, PHOTOS ARE BETTER THAN WORDS.
Non Glare museum glass. The colors are very vibrant but the flash of the camera dulled them some, sorry.
Rare Framed vintage Art in a unique hand painted frame by artist.
Rare Limited authentic Vintage plate from the 1950s, Plate 14, thick paper.
The large folio book page alone measures 49 cm x 34 cm or 19" x 14".
FINISHED SIZE WITH FRAME IS: 27" X 20"
Large lithographic book plate/page taken from a botanical book published in 1956 - "Great Flower Books 1700-1900". This book was limited to 1750 copies and printed on "Gelderland" white cartridge.
This is an actual page from this vintage book, not a digital download.
Excellent condition.
The reverse side of the page is blank.
The last 2 photos show folios from the same book also framed and available in our sales
Description: ROBERT JOHN THORNTON (1768-1837)
Originally Painted by Phillipp Reinagle (1749 – 1833) and Abraham Pether (1756-1812)
Engraved by Robert Dunkerton
From The Temple Of Flora; or Garden of Nature. Picturesque Botanical Plates of the New Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus.
London: Dr. Robert John Thornton, 1799 - 1807
Buchanan's Plate XIV
Mixed method engraving, including aquatint, mezzotint, stipple and line engraving, printed in color and finished by hand
Robert John Thornton (1768-1837) was destined for a career in the church, but while at Trinity College, Cambridge he found inspiration in the botanical lectures of Thomas Martyn and switched to studying medicine. He went on to lecture in medical botany at Guy's Hospital. Conceived on a grandiose scale, Thornton's work was to comprise three parts: a dissertation on the sexual reproductive cycle of plates; an explanation of Linnaeus's plant system, lavishly illustrated with botanical plates and portraits of botanists; and "The Temple of Flora" which was to have no less than seventy large plates of exotic plant species arranged according to the classification system of Linnaeus. 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" (An 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. Because some plates were withdrawn or reworked in the course of publication, it is not possible to establish a definitive collation of the work. For his contribution to English botanical illustration, Thornton has been compared to Redouté by Alan Thomas: "more 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 Antoinette, 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.
We also carry loose original prints 300 years old or less in great condition such as: Albin, Audubon, Baron, Barraband, Bertuch, Brodtmann, Brown, Buffon, Cassel, Curtis, Cuvier, Donovan, Edwards, Fitch, Frisch, Grandville, Harrison, Walter Hood, Latham, Linden,Linnaeus, Loddiges, Martinet, McKenney, Morris, Munting, Redoute, Reinchenbachia, Schreber, Schubert, Selby, Shaw and Nodder, Van Geel, Warner, etc.... etc...
Again, we closed our art store of antique prints and custom frames as well as our store of rare artifacts from around the world and we will now sell them here, direct to the public. We have 1000's of antique prints and it will take a while to do so, so if you are interested in prints from the names above or others since I did not have time to list them all, please let us know.