The Blue Egyptian Water Lily
From The Temple of Flora — a lotus staged like a landscape painting.
- Work
- The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature
- Artist / naturalist
- Joseph Constantine Stadler, after Robert John Thornton
- Origin & date
- England, 1804
- Held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Also drawn from Robert John Thornton's The Temple of Flora, this 1804 plate gives the Blue Egyptian Water Lily — Nymphaea caerulea, sacred to ancient Egypt and prized in English hothouses as an exotic new import — the same theatrical treatment as its sister plates: a botanically precise bloom set into a full atmospheric scene, engraved by Joseph Constantine Stadler after Thornton's design. What to notice: the lily floats at the base of the composition while the landscape behind it does the emotional work — Thornton believed a flower's character could only be fully felt in a mood, not a void. Thornton's project bankrupted him within a decade of publication, making surviving plates from The Temple of Flora both art-historically singular and genuinely rare — a beautiful, quixotic gamble that flowers deserved scenery.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.