James Edward Smith / James Sowerby - Lot. of 20 sheets - "English Botany; or, Coloured Figures of British Plants" - 1800

Lot of 16 panels;
Type: Etching;
Support: Heavy paper;
Condition: Excellent imprinting in black and white with contemporary coloring, good condition with mild traces of foxing and browning;
Insured shipping via Bartolini/DPD courier. To use the insurance coverage, any damages to the neck (collo) must be claimed and reported to the courier at the time of delivery. Otherwise, it will not be possible to activate the insurance reimbursement procedure.

Publisher: J. DAVIS,
And sold by the Owner J. SOWERBY

James Sowerby (London, March 21, 1757 – Lambeth, October 25, 1822) was an English illustrator and naturalist.

Illustration of Acer campestre by J. Sowerby
He devoted himself, pursuing his passion for natural sciences, to botany, mineralogy, geology, paleontology, malacology, and mycology, painting hundreds of descriptive plates.

He studied art at the Royal Academy in London and worked together with William Curtis, whose botanical work, Flora Londinensis, he illustrated.

Works
Sir James Edward Smith & James Sowerby (1790-1814). English Botany, 36 vols.
James Sowerby (1796-1815). Coloured figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, 3 vols.

Sir James Edward Smith (Norwich, December 2, 1759 – March 17, 1828) was an English entomologist and botanist, founder and first president of the Linnean Society of London.

From a very young age he was interested in flora and the natural sciences, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh where he was among the pupils of John Walker.

In 1783 he moved to London. Here, the following year, he had the opportunity to purchase, saving, the entire Swedish natural history collection of Linnaeus, comprising thousands of species of plants, insects and mollusks, as well as documents and books. The publicity of this initiative allowed Smith to gain admission to the Royal Society.

From 1786 he joined the Grand Tour travelers, visiting botanical gardens, museums and herbariums of the Netherlands, France, Italy and Switzerland. Returning to London in 1788, he founded the Linnean Society there, which he chaired until his death. His library and his botanical collection gained much fame, being visited by numerous entomologists and botanists from all over Europe.

Between 1808 and 1819 he wrote over 3,000 botany articles for the “New Cyclopaedia,” Abraham Rees’ universal dictionary of arts and sciences. Among his most well-known publications are Flora Britannica and the four volumes of Flora English published between 1824 and 1828.

Among his entomology writings, particular significance was given to the Natural History of rare insects of Georgia published in 1797, in which he dealt, in particular, with the rare species of Lepidoptera present in the American state. Many of his unpublished memoirs were published posthumously in 1832, edited by his wife.