Image Details:

"Pitcher Plant"--an illustration (color and stipple engraving) 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; it was engraved by R. Cooper.