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THORNTON, Robert John (circa 1768-1837). - Abraham PETHER (1731-1795)
The Snowdrop
London: September 1804. Hand-coloured and colour-printed in mezzotint by William Ward. Discolouration at the top edge, and a faint brown line of discolouration just outside the platemark on all four sides, well outside the image. . Sheet size: 22 3/8 x 18 inches.
An excellent example of this William Ward colour mezzotint
"The snowdrop [Galanthus nivalis L.] has a special place in everyone's affections. Small, solitary and early, it exhibits the most extreme hardihood, often pushing its way up through the snow to flower the earliest of all. The second part of its common name, `drop', compares it with an ear-drop, which it is thought to resemble. The yellow crocus [?Crocus flavus Weston (C. aureus, C. maesiacus)], slightly later than the snowdrop, is the rue herald of springtime . John Gerard, the Elizabethan herbalist, said of it that it has `floures of a most perfect shining yellow colour, seeming afar off to be a hot glowing cole of fire'. The purple crocus [?C. vernus Hill] follows, both yellow and purple species being the parents of many garden varieties." (Ronald King. The Temple of Flora by Robert Thornton. 1981, p. 52).
Thornton's Temple of Flora is the greatest English colour-plate flower book. "...[Thornton] inherited a competent fortune and trained as a doctor. He appears to have had considerable success in practice and was appointed both physician to the Marylebone Dispensary and lecturer in medical botany at Guy's and St. Thomas's hospitals. But quite early in his career he embarked on his... great work. 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... Numerous important artists were engaged... twenty-eight paintings of flowers commissioned from Abraham Pether, known as `Moonlight Pether', Philip Reinagle, ... Sydenham Edwards, and Peter Henderson... The result... involved Thornton in desperate financial straits.... In an attempt to extricate himself he organized the Royal Botanic Lottery, under the patronage of the Prince Regent... it is easy to raise one's eyebrows at Thornton's unworldly and injudicious approach to publishing... But he produced... one of the loveliest books in the world" (Alan Thomas Great Books and Book Collecting, pp.142-144).
Second state of three of this plate from the Temple of Flora. `The pond in the right hand bottom corner is the clue here. In the first state it is entirely open and the water is coloured blue. In the second state bushes growing from the banks almost entirely cover the pond, which looks dark brown. The foreground has also been entirely reworked. Many smaller changes can be seen, notably extra leaves on the creeper above the crocus; the icicles are more prominent; there is more shading on the snowdrops; and the sky has been remodelled. But a glance at the pond will be all that is needed... For the Lottery edition [in which the third state appears] the plate was reworked all over in aquatint' (Handasyde Buchanan. Thornton's Temple of Flora, 1951, p.15).
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#17210 $3,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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