James Sowerby

James Sowerby
James Sowerby painted by Thomas Heaphy (1816)
Born	21 March 1757 (1757-03-21) Lambeth, London, England
Died	25 October 1822(1822-10-25) (aged 65) Lambeth, London, England
Education	Royal Academy in London
Occupation	Illustrator, naturalist, publisher
Spouse(s)	Anne Brettingham De Carle
Children	James de Carle, George Brettingham, Charles Edward
Parent(s)	John Sowerby, Arabella Goodspeed

James Sowerby (21 March 1757 – 25 October 1822) was an English naturalist and illustrator. 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 were intended to reach a widening audience in works of natural history.

James Sowerby was born in Lambeth, London, his parents were named John and Arabella. Having decided to become a painter of flowers his first venture was with William Curtis, whose Flora Londinensis he illustrated. Sowerby studied art at the Royal Academy and took an apprenticeship with Richard Wright. He married Anne Brettingham De Carle and they were to have three sons: James De Carle Sowerby (1787–1871), George Brettingham Sowerby I (1788–1854) and Charles Edward Sowerby (1795–1842), the Sowerby family of naturalists. His sons and theirs were to contribute and continue the enormous volumes he was to begin and the Sowerby name was to remain associated with illustration of natural history.

An early commission for Sowerby was to lead to his prominence in the field when the botanist L'Hértier de Brutelle invited Sowerby to provide the plates for his monograph, Geranologia, and two later works. He also came to the notice of William Curtis, who was undertaking a new type of publication. Early volumes of the first British botany journal, The Botanical Magazine, contained fifty-six of his illustrations.

In 1790, he began the first of several huge projects: a 36-volume work on the botany of England that was published over the next 24 years, contained 2592 hand-colored engravings and became known as Sowerby's Botany. An enormous number of plants were to receive their formal publication, but the authority for these came from the unattributed text written by James Edward Smith.