FURBER, Robert (16744-1756). The Flower Garden Display’d in above 400 curious representations of the most Beautiful flowers, Regularly dispos’d in the respective Months of their Blossom, curiously engraved on copper-plates from the Designs of Mr. Furber and Others, and coloured to the life… With the description and history of each Plant, and the Method of their Culture.

Rare première édition.

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).

Les bouquets sont représentés dans des vases richement ornés de motifs baroques, et chacun est accompagné, au-dessous, d’une liste gravée des plantes figurées.

Robert Furber (1674-1756), jardinier dans la banlieue londonienne de Kensington, avait demandé au peintre flamand Peter Casteels de dessiner l’ensemble des fleurs qu’il pouvait fournir pour les jardins et les serres, réunies en douze bouquets correspondant aux mois de l’année.

Il publia ensuite ces somptueux arrangements sous forme d’une suite de planches gravées « coloriées d’après nature », qui servit à son tour de modèle aux planches ici gravées à plus petite échelle par James Smith. Le texte, comprenant « la description et l’histoire de chaque plante ainsi que la méthode de leur culture », est dû à 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 et Henry Rogers Broughton avec leurs ex-libris armoriés gravés.