Image Details:

"The Night-Blowing Cereus"--an illustration (hand-colored mezzotint, hand colored) from Thornton's "Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature," the most famous of all English botanicals and arguably the greatest illustrated book on flowers ever published. A physician, poet, philosopher, painter, and passionate amateur botanist, Thornton (1765-1832) gave up his medical practice when he came into the family fortune in 1797 to devote himself to "The Temple of Flora," a lavish homage to the great Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). An artistic triumph, "The Temple of Flora" nevertheless brought Thornton to financial ruin, and he managed to complete only about one-third of his projected total of 90 folio plates. The illustration of this plate is by Peter Reinagle (flower) and Abraham Pether (background); it was engraved by James Caldwall.