Much botanical art would not exist without the Patrons
These are the people who sponsor the creation of drawings, paintings, books
​- all recording either indigenous and/or cultivated plants discovered around the world and in gardens

Scope and Purpose

This NEW page aims to be a timeline of patrons across the centuries.

It will also have linked pages which cover particularly prominent individuals who are important to the development of botanical art.

​In part this page is being developed to highlight the distinction between:
  • those who promote the development of botanical art
  • those who are botanical artists and illustrators.
Very often botanical art is referred to by the name of the person who sponsored the development of the art and the names of the artists are less evident.

The Patrons

The people covered on this page will include the following (there are more names to be added).

These are the people covered by this page on this website. (in chronological order). Those with a dedicated page on this website have names highlighted in blue - denoting a link to their page

Sixteenth Century Eighteenth Century
  • Hans Sloane (1660-1753) 
  • Karl Wilhelm, Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1679-1738) 
  • ​Dr. Christoph Trew (1695-1769)  ​
  • Joseph Banks (1743-1820)
  • William Curtis (1746–1799)
Twentieth Century
  • Wilfrid Blunt (1901-1987)
  • William Stearn (1911 - 2001)
  • Shirley Sherwood (1933-to date) 
  • HRH The Prince of Wales (1948-to date)

Sixteenth Century Patrons of Botanical Art
​

Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566)
DEDICATED PAGE - development of Herbals

Basilius Besler (1561-1629)
DEDICATED PAGE - botanist, apothecary and botanical art book publisher and the developer of the first florilegium ​- the Hortus Eystettensis.
Picture
Basilius Besler, Hortus Eystettensis, Nuremberg 1613. Ouvrage illustré de botanique sur papier. Bibliothèque de l'Université de Liège, Wiki Loves Art, Liège, Belgique

Eighteenth Century Patrons of Botanical Art
​

Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753)
Anglo-Irish physician, naturalist and collector. President of the Royal Society and President of the Royal College of Physicians. He bought the manor of Chelsea and provided the grounds for the Chelsea Physic Garden. His bequest related to his collections formed the basis of the British Museum and subsequently part of the Natural History Museum Collection of Botanical Art.
​
Picture
The statue of Hans Sloane seen through the gates into the Apoethcary's Garden in Chelsea - now known as the Chelsea Physic Garden
Karl Wilhelm, the Margrave of Baden-Durlach (1679-1738)
Keen botanist and flower collector and early employer of Georg Ehret
​
​Dr. Christoph Trew (1695-1769)  ​Wealthy German physician and bibliophile who became the lifelong patron and friend of Georg Dionysius Ehret
Joseph Banks (1743-1820)
​British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He:
  • advised King George III to pursue expeditions of scientific discovery
  • appointed botanical illustrators, including Sydney Parkinson, on Captain Cook's voyage to Australia and New Zealand who produced the Endeavour Botanical Illustrations now housed at the Natural History Museum.
  • The Florilegium developed as a result is known as Banks' Florilegium.
William Curtis (1746–1799)
English botanist who was the demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1771 to 1777. He 
  • published  Flora Londinensis (6 volumes, 1777–1798) devoted to plants and flowers in London. It was also "one of the most beautiful and important botanical publications of the eighteenth century"
  • published The Botanical Magazine in 1787, which was subsequently continued as Curtis's Botanical Magazine. It has commissioned plates of botanical illustrations for 230 years.
REFERENCE: 
Picture
Statue of Sir Joseph Banks, Natural History Museum, London (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Twentieth Century Patrons
​

Wilfrid Blunt (1901-1987) 
School Teacher and Botanical Art Historian. His book The Art of Botanical Illustration is the 'bible' of botanical art. He also taught Rory McEwen at Eton and advised him about the botanical illustrators to study
​
Shirley Sherwood (1933-to date) 
DEDICATED PAGE 
Botanical Art Collector and author whose family created the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art - the first Art Gallery dedicated to the display of Botanical Art by a variety of botanical artists. Her books have helped promote a renaissance in botanical art.
​
Picture
The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
HRH The Prince of Wales (19 to date) 
Sponsored the development of 
  • the Highgrove Florilegium - recording the plants rowing at his home at Highgrove Garden, near Tetbury
  • the Transylvania Florilegium - recording the diversity of indigenous flora in the unchanged meadows of Transylvania 
  • read more about both the above in the section about Florilegium and Flora
Picture
The Highgrove Florilegium
Banner Image: The Physic Garden, Chelsea: a view showing the pair of cedar trees, and the statue of Sloane in the centre of the garden of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Lithograph by H. Warren after J. Fuge. Soource: Wellcome Collection via Wikimedia Commons