Ehret was one of the greatest botanical illustrators working in the 18th century. He supplied illustrations for a number of important botanical publications. He was also closely involved in publicising and promoting the binomial system of plant classification that was devised by the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus.

Ehret painted the original from which this print is taken in the 1740s at the height of his mature style. He studied the plant in the garden of Peter Collinson. Collinson, an avid collector of new plants who lived just outside London. Ehret often studied plants in his collection. In the original Ehret notes that the ‘the lily first flowered in August 1738’. This engraving was published in Christoph Jacob Trew’s book Plantae selectae, which reflected a new trend in lavish, privately funded publications on exotic plants. It included about one hundred of Georg Ehret’s finest studies from Trew’s collection.