King Fishers & Jacamar.

Artist:

Sydneham Edwards (1768-1819)

Initially worked for Curtis’sBotanical Magzine, until a dispute with the publishers when he started his own rival magazineThe Botanical Register.

He was born in Monmouthshire, a from an early age demonstrated a precocious talent for drawing and when only 11 years old had copied plates from Flora Londinensis. A friend of William Curtis, the publisher visited the Edwards and recommended the boy to Curtis. Curtis proceeded to have Edwards trained in both botany and botanical illustration. Edwards was a prolific talent and between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 watercolours for Curtis’sBotanical Magazine. He establishedThe Botanical Register  in 1815 after a disagreement with John Sims, Curtis’s editor.