“Tulips” from The Beauties of Flora

Samuel Curtis, the publisher of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, played a leading role in British horticulture from the late 18th century onward. The periodical that bears Curtis’s name is the oldest continually published journal devoted to the science of garden cultivation. Less successful were Curtis’s plans to publish The Beauties of Flora, a project he eventually abandoned, likely because the costs and time involved in producing the illustrations were too high. Curtis commissioned the botanical artist Thomas Baxter, who would soon make his name as a decorator of chinaware, to execute the preparatory drawing on which this print is based.