James Sowerby was an English naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist. Contributions to published works, such as A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland or English Botany, include his detailed and appealing plates. The use of vivid colour and accessible texts was intended to reach a widening audience in works of natural history. The standard author abbreviation Sowerby is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
James Sowerby painted by Thomas Heaphy (1816)
Original hand colored pattern plate for James Sowerby's "Mineral Conchology of Great Britain."
Hand-coloured print from an engraving of Banksia spinulosa from A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland by Sowerby
Cassiterite from Cornwall, from British Mineralogy, 1803
A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland
A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland, also known by its standard abbreviation Spec. Bot. New Holland, was the first published book on the flora of Australia. Written by James Edward Smith and illustrated by James Sowerby, it was published by Sowerby in four parts between 1793 and 1795. It consists of 16 colour plates of paintings by Sowerby, mostly based on sketches by John White, and around 40 pages of accompanying text. It was presented as the first volume in a series, but no further volumes were released.
James Sowerby's plate of Embothrium speciosissimum, now Telopea speciosissima (New South Wales Waratah)
