The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature: A Group of Auriculas (1803): Art, History and Details

The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature: A Group of Auriculas (1803) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Robert John Thornton (British, 1768–1837).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The greatest English botanical publication of the early 19th century was Dr. Robert John Thornton’s Temple of Flora. Although Thornton studied medicine, his passion was botany and he soon embarked upon a major publishing venture that brought him both fame and financial ruin. The work, New Illustrations of the Sexual System of Linnaeus, was the most sumptuous botanical publication ever produced. The third section, the famous Temple of Flora, has 28 flower portraits set not against a plain conventional background but in the full richness of their natural setting. Unfortunately the day of the great florilegia had passed and Thornton died in poverty in 1837.

Object facts

• Title: The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature: A Group of Auriculas
• Date: 1803
• Creator attribution: Robert John Thornton (British, 1768–1837)
• Culture: England, late 18th-early 19th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: aquatint, stipple, and etching with watercolor added by hand
• Collection: PR - Aquatint
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1949.415

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.