The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"

The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"

Joseph Constantine Stadler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This delicately colored aquatint depicts blue Egyptian water lily (Nymphaea coerulea) rising from the waters of the Nile at Aboukir Bay, with palm trees and a mosque in the middle distance.The site would have reminded viewers of Nelson's 1798 victory over the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Dr. John Thornton devoted his personal fortune to the project which celebrated recent discoveries relating to floral reproduction by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Flowers from all corners of the globe are shown in native habitats (although costs allowed only thirty-two of a planned seventy prints to be published). Thirteen engravers worked from paintings and drawings supplied by botanical artists, the plates were etched using a combination of aquatint, stipple and mezzotint, printed in color "à la poupée" then enhanced with watercolor additions. Size, composition and sensitive coloring together suggest that these works hoped to raise botanical art to a level that rivaled more exalted genres.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"The Blue Egyptian Water Lily, from "The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.