Wholesale AURICULAS — The Temple of Flora by Thornton | Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature — AURICULAS Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle. These flowers were so fashionable, wealthy Georgians built velvet-lined theaters just to display them. A Group of Auriculas from Dr. Robert John Thornton's Temple of Flora, painted by Peter Charles Henderson and published May 1, 1803, shows four varieties of show auricula — the round-headed, eye-ringed alpine primrose that became one of the great obsessions of Regency-era English horticulture. Thornton himself wrote that being a native of the Alps, "in our picture, it is seated near a chain of tremendous mountains" — explaining the dramatic Alpine backdrop that towers behind these pot-grown flowers. By the end of the eighteenth century, something like fifty auricula shows were being held each year in Lancashire and Yorkshire alone, and during the Regency the pot-grown auricula became the pet plant of polite society. The auricula "theatre" — black velvet draped over tiered shelves, with ornate mirrors placed at the sides to reflect the flowers — was the height of aristocratic display. This plate captures that moment exactly. Thornton ruined himself making this book. A medical doctor and heir who had no business spending what he spent, he commissioned painters, engravers, and printers for eight years straight, from 1799 to 1807, to produce 33 plates of flowers so dramatically lit and romantically staged they looked nothing like any botanical illustration anyone had seen. The project bankrupted him. The plates survived. 📖 The Story Behind This Piece Robert John Thornton's Temple of Flora was meant as a tribute to Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who gave the plant kingdom its naming system. What Thornton actually built was something closer to theater. Each plate sets a single flower, rendered with scientific precision, against a stormy sky, a volcanic landscape, a moonlit garden. The Night-Blowing Cereus opens at midnight in front of a clock showing the hour. The Dragon Arum looms out of a murky fen like something from a fever dream. Thornton published between 1799 and 1807, while Britain was at war and the market for expensive folios was soft. He knew the timing was bad. He published anyway. Thornton hired Philip Reinagle and Peter Henderson to paint the original compositions, then put them through aquatint, stipple, and mezzotint engraving to get the color and shadow depth he wanted. The mezzotint process alone, which builds tone by roughening a copper plate and then smoothing it back, could take weeks per image.