Robert John Thornton

Robert John Thornton was born in 1768, the son of Bonnell Thornton, a translator of Plautus and joint editor of The Connoisseur. His exact birth date and birthplace are not documented in the sources consulted. He received early private tuition from the Rev. Mr. Taylor, vicar of Kensington, before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was originally intended for the church. He instead turned to medicine, graduating Bachelor of Medicine at Cambridge in 1793. He continued his training at Guy's Hospital in London over a three year course, attending lectures in anatomy under Henry Cline and in chemistry under William Babington, and traveled to Paris, Holland, Germany, Edinburgh, and Dublin to broaden his medical education.

Thornton began practicing medicine in London in 1797, served for a period as physician to the Marylebone Dispensary, and lectured in medical botany at Guy's Hospital. He earned an M.D. from the University of St Andrews on 4 November 1805 and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 6 January 1812.

Alongside medicine, Thornton pursued an ambitious publishing project, A New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus, issued in parts from 1797 to 1807. Its celebrated third part, The Temple of Flora, paired large hand-colored botanical plates, painted by artists including Philip Reinagle and engraved by figures such as James Caldwell, with dramatic symbolic landscape backdrops. In 1803 Thornton opened his own gallery in London to display the paintings behind the plates and sell subscriptions. The venture was ruinously expensive and never recovered its costs. Thornton died at Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, London, on 21 January 1837, leaving his family in poverty.

The Temple of Flora is consistently described in reference and dealer literature as one of the most spectacular botanical books ever produced, notable for combining scientific illustration of the Linnaean system with theatrical, almost allegorical backdrops behind each specimen. No exact, attributable quotation from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for inclusion here. The project's reputation rests less on formal critical reviews from Thornton's own period and more on its enduring status among print historians and rare-book specialists as an outsized, financially reckless act of ambition that nonetheless produced enduring images.

Thornton's market today runs through the antiquarian book, print, and rare-book trade rather than a contemporary gallery or auction circuit built around a living artist. Individual Temple of Flora plates and complete bound sets surface periodically at specialist dealers and major auction houses, with results that vary enormously by completeness and condition. Arader Galleries reported selling a Tulips plate for USD 21,960 and a Nodding Renealmia plate for USD 5,937 in a 2015 gallery blog post that could not be independently corroborated elsewhere. A Sotheby's London lot from the 2010 dispersal of the Frederick, 2nd Lord Hesketh collection carried a pre-sale estimate of GBP 40,000 to 60,000 for a combined Linnaeus and Temple of Flora set; the realized price and exact sale date could not be confirmed from sources consulted. There is no representing gallery or managed estate; his works circulate through institutions such as Teylers Museum in Haarlem and the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in Manchester, and through specialist dealers such as Arader Galleries.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Robert John Thornton, and no gallery or estate currently represents his work. Verification depends on provenance, plate condition, and comparison against institutionally held reference copies, most notably the complete set at Teylers Museum. Because the market is built on antiquarian books and prints rather than unique paintings, price is driven heavily by whether a lot is a single plate, a partial set, or a complete bound Linnaean and Temple of Flora set, and by the quality of the hand coloring. Reported figures in this profile range from roughly USD 6,000 for a single plate to a GBP 40,000 to 60,000 pre-sale estimate for a complete set, with the realized price unconfirmed, and collectors should treat any single reported price as specific to that lot's completeness and condition rather than as a stable per-plate benchmark.