Robert John Thornton (?1786-1837) was a prolific medical author and became a Doctor of Medicine at St Andrews University and licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. However, he is best remembered for his great botanical publication The Temple of Flora, which formed a part of the larger work New Illustration of the sexual system of...Linnaeus. For these remarkable illustrations, he engaged the services of the leading artists and engravers of his day: Sir William Beechey, James Opie, Henry Raeburn, John Russell, Philip Reinagle and others as painters; Francesco Bartolozzi, Richard Earlom and John Landseer as engravers.

For these remarkable illustrations, he engaged the services of the leading artists and engravers of his day: Sir William Beechey, James Opie, Henry Raeburn, John Russell, Philip Reinagle and others as painters; Francesco Bartolozzi, Richard Earlom and John Landseer. Most of the images were painted by Peter Charles Henderson and Philip Reinagle, with two by Abraham Pether, who also rendered the moonlight in Reinagle's Night-blowing Cereus, one of the best-known images from the set. The remaining two plates were painted by Sydenham Edwards and Thornton himself, who created the famous plate of Roses.

Aquatint and mezzotint, printed in colour and finished by hand, heightened with gum arabic, from The Temple of Flora.