14 Facts About James Sowerby

James Sowerby was an English naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist.

James Sowerby was born in Lambeth, London, his parents were named John and Arabella.

James Sowerby married Anne Brettingham De Carle and they were to have four daughters and three sons: James De Carle Sowerby, George Brettingham Sowerby I and Charles Edward Sowerby, the Sowerby family of naturalists.

An early commission for James Sowerby was to lead to his prominence in the field when the botanist L'Hertier de Brutelle invited James Sowerby to provide the plates for his monograph, Geranologia, and two later works.

James Sowerby came to the notice of William Curtis, who was undertaking a new type of publication.

James Sowerby intended to reach an audience whose curiosity for gardening and the natural world could be piqued by publishing the attractive and more affordable works.

James Sowerby developed a theory of colour and published two landmark illustrated works on mineralogy: the British Mineralogy and as a supplement to it the Exotic Mineralogy.

James Sowerby retained the specimens used in the expansive volumes he helped to produce.

James' great-grandson, the explorer and naturalist Arthur de Carle Sowerby continued the family tradition, providing many specimens for the British Museum and museums in Shanghai and Washington DC.

James Sowerby is commemorated in the naming of several taxa of plants including; Sowerbaea, a genus of plant in Asparagaceae family, by Sm.

James Sowerby produced a large corpus of work that appeared in many different publications and journals.

Some works begun by the paterfamilias of the James Sowerby's was to be completed only by the generations that followed.

Besides the renowned botanical works, James Sowerby produced extensive volumes on mycology, conchology, mineralogy and a seminal work on his colour system.

James Sowerby wrote an instruction called A botanical drawing-book, or an easy introduction to drawing flowers according to nature.