London, J. Hazard, R. Montagu, W. Bickerton, R. Chandler and Caesar Ward, 1732.
Quarto with 1 engraved frontispiece, (6) pp., 108 pp., (8) leaves and 12 plates out of text, brown calf, gilt fillets around the boards, spine with raised bands, edges decorated with blind tooling. London binding from the period, worn.
257 x 195 mm.
Rare first edition.
Dunthorne 114; Henri 712; Nissen BBI 677.
Ornamental title-page and 12 hand-colored engraved plates reduced from those of Furber’s Twelve Months of Flowers and thus based on paintings by P. Casteels, engraved by J. Smith. These reduced copies seem to have been very popular, no comparable work of higher quality being available at the time, and in two different issues sponsored by two groups of London book- and print-sellers (Robert Sayer, John King and Philip Overton; R. Montagu, J. Brindley and C. Corbett).
For a note on this work, see R. P. Brotherston in Gard. Chron. III. 47:33 (15 Jan. 1910).
The bouquets are represented in vases richly adorned with baroque motifs, and each is accompanied below by an engraved list of the depicted plants.
Robert Furber (1674-1756), a gardener in the London suburb of Kensington, had asked the Flemish painter Peter Casteels to draw all the flowers he could supply for gardens and greenhouses, gathered into twelve bouquets corresponding to the months of the year.
He then published these sumptuous arrangements in the form of a series of engraved plates “colored after nature,” which in turn served as a model for the smaller-scale plates engraved here by James Smith. The text, including “the description and history of each plant as well as the method of their cultivation,” is by Robert Dudley.
Robert Furber was a British horticulturist best known for writing the first seed catalogue produced in England.
Furber’s most notable work was Twelve Months of Flowers, published in 1730. The book was written as a catalog of plants and seeds and featured twelve detailed engravings of seasonal plants in bloom. Henry Fletcher produced each of the twelve hand-colored engravings from paintings by Pieter Casteels. Each plant was numbered, with a list of the corresponding species names provided. More than 400 different species of plant were featured. The plates were originally sold on a subscription basis for £1 5s in uncolored form, or £2 12s 6d for a colored version. The book was reprinted in 1982.
Very useful not only for the curious in gardening, but the prints likewise for painters, carvers, Japaners etc., also for the ladies, as patterns for working and painting in watercolors, or furniture in the closet.
In 1732, Furber produced a follow-up work entitled Twelve Months of Fruit. Like his previous collection of flowers, Twelve Months of Fruit featured twelve full-color plates with 364 different fruit. Each plate focused on one month, and showed the varieties of fruit that would ripen during that month.
Other works by Furber include a 1732 book entitled The Flower Garden Displayed, a general-purpose book written for a wider audience.
Provenance: John Daniell Esq Haracles and Henry Rogers Broughton with their engraved armorial bookplates.
