NAVIGATION

James Sowerby was the first of a large family of artists who
illustrated botanical and conchological books for nearly a century.
Most of his original botanical drawings are in the Natural History
Museum.
He was a pupil of the marine painter Richard Wright (1735-1774).
Sowerby was remarkably prolific and hard working producing over 2500
illustrations for 'English Botany' 1790-1814. His drawings have a fine
attention to botanical detail and a very clear so that it was easy to
transfer them to printed form.
In later years he studied zoology, mineralogy, fossils, fungi and
shells, writing and illustrating works on all these subjects. A genus
of Australian lilies was names after him 'Sowerbaea' and also a whale
which he found beached off Dogger Bank 'Mesoplodon Sowerbiensis'.
Despite the number of projects in which he was involved he still needed
to take in pupils and rely on teaching and portraiture for a living.
His best known pupil was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin author of the
famous 18th century feminist work 'Vindication of the Rights of Women'.