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
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.

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 and
  • those who commission botanical illustrations
and
  • those who are botanical artists and illustrators.
Modern collections of botanical illustrations are treaty indebted to the patrons of the past, whose leisured curiosity and horticultural acquisitiveness enabled them to accumulate various “vegetable rarities,” and then to have those plants recorded in drawings or paintings from which published illustrations were prepared. Many of the surviving florilegia, or collections of flower illustrations, are records of the contents of specific gardens. many of the illustrators whose work is now collected earned their livelihood by documenting newly discovered or introduced plants nurtured in private gardens. The artist presented the proud owner, and sometimes his friends, with a plant portrait, usually in watercolor, and in some instances these illustrations were collected and published. Prior to publication it was not uncommon for an artist to prepare several copies of a particular illustration for different patrons.
Patronage and the publication of botanical illustration By Bernadette G. Callery; from The Magazine ANTIQUES, August 1989.

The Patrons

These are the people covered by this page on this website. (in chronological order). The people covered on this page will include the following (there are more names to be added).

Those with
  • their name in bold are listed below
  • a dedicated page on this website have names highlighted in blue - denoting a link to their page. 

16th Century 18th Century
  • Hans Sloane (1660-1753) 
  • Karl Wilhelm (1679-1738) 
  • ​Dr. Christoph Trew (1695-1769)  ​
  • Joseph Banks (1743-1820)
  • William Curtis (1746–1799)
19th Century
  • William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire (1790 - 1858)
  • ​John Lindley (1799 – 1865)
20th / 21st Centuries
  • Wilfrid Blunt (1901-1987)
  • William Stearn (1911 - 2001)
  • Dr. Shirley Sherwood (1933-to date) 
  • Felix Dennis (1947 - 2014)
  • HRH The Prince of Wales (1948-to date)
Many of the large color-plate collections of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were issued in parts over a period of time, with subscribers solicited to help defray the cost. Subscribers’ lists are valuable to collectors and bibliographers for their clues they give to the number of copies printed and for their hints as to where presentation copies with original watercolors or additional plates might be found. Serial publication and subscribers’ continuing payments eased the burden on the original patron but compounded the confusion of later collectors and bibliographers. ​
Patronage and the publication of botanical illustration op cit.

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
Sir 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)
The botanical magazines, where prints of the orchids appeared, acted as a stage upon which wealthy plant-owners could exhibit their exotic plants and generate public interest in them, asserting their position in the world of fashionable botany.
​

Nineteenth Century Patrons
​

William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire (1790 - 1858)
  • He was a very keen horticulturist and had developed an interest in horticulture because Chatsworth bordered on the grounds of the Horticultural Society.  
  • He was subsequently elected President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1838 - and served for 20 years in that post.
  • He might also be said to be a leading figure in the Orchidelirium craze which was prevalent in the 19th century. He developed the world's largest collection of orchids at Chatsworth House - which were looked after by Joseph Paxton, the Duke's Head Gardener at Chatsworth - who he had 'poached' from the RHS!
  • Paxton commissioned Samuel Holden to paint botanical illustrations of orchids in the collection.​ Holden was a prolific painter of exotic plants, especially orchids, in the 1830s and 1840s.
This haste to picture the plants reveals a desire to be the first to claim ownership of a particular species. The botanical magazines, where prints of the orchids appeared, acted as a stage upon which wealthy plant-owners could exhibit their exotic plants and generate public interest in them, asserting their position in the world of fashionable botany.
Victoria and Albert Museum
John Lindley FRS FLS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865)
Lindley ​was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist who worked with a number of botanical illustrators and helped save Kew Gardens for the nation. William Hooker had noted his talent and it was he who allowed Lindley to work in his library and who recommended him to Sir Joseph Banks.
  • 1819 - Lindley left for London. Working with great diligence and accuracy from Bank's house in Soho Square, Lindley drew, described and named new varieties of plants with an insight and maturity that gained him a Fellowship of the Linnaean Society at the age of twenty-one.
  • 1820 - after Banks died, the Horticultural Society of London employed Lindley to draw roses. 
  • 1822 - he became garden assistant secretary at the Horticultural Society
  • early 1820s - accepted the appointment of Professor of Botany at University College London, London, England. 
  • 1830 - 1830 - he organized the first flower shows to be held in England. 
  • 1820–1847 - He also edited the ​The Botanical Register 
  • Elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London.  
  • 1838 - investigated the conditions at the Kew Gardens. He recommended that the gardens be turned over to the nation and used as the botanical headquarters for the United Kingdom
  • He was the top authority on orchids of this time and published a number of works.
  • He co-founded The Gardeners' Chronicle and became its first editor.  
  • 1865 - He died at his home at Acton Green, near London, aged 66. 
  • It's a little known fact that Rory McEwen is a direct descendent of John Lindley.​
Picture
John Lindley (1865) - engraving after a photograph
APPRECIATION
  • He was held in high regard by other botanists and was honoured by naming more than 200 species with the epithets "lindleyi", "lindleyana", "lindleyanum", "lindleyanus", "lindleya" and "lindleyoides".
  • The Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Hall and the Lindley Library  are both named after him. 
PUBLICATIONS: REFERENCE:

Twentieth Century Patrons
​

Wilfrid Blunt (1901-1987) 
School Teacher and Botanical Art Historian. Blunt wrote his most acclaimed book, The Art of Botanical Illustration together with the botanist William T. Stearn (1911-2001). It was published in 1950 and Blunt was subsequently awarded the Veitch Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society.  His book 'The Art of Botanical Illustration' continues to be the 'bible' of botanical art history.
​He was a Drawing Master at Eton and taught Rory McEwen. He also advised him about the botanical illustrators to study. 
  • Born: 19 July 1901 at The Vicarage, Ham, near Richmond. Died: 8 January 1987.
  • Elected to the Linnean Society: 24 May 1969.
  • Obituaries: The Independent 13 Jan. 1987, The Telegraph 13 Jan. 1987.
  • Wilfrid Blunt | Dictionary of Art Historians
Dr. Shirley Sherwood (1933-to date) 
This a link to her DEDICATED PAGE on this website
​
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
Felix Dennis (1947 - 2014)​
Dennis made his money through publishing and became the 65th richest individual in the UK.

He was absolutely passionate about trees and sponsored
  • the development and planting of a new forest of native broadleaf trees in Central England known as The Heart of England Forest
  • the drawings of ancient oaks around the UK undertaken by Mark Frith - and subsequently gifted (in part) to Kew and exhibited at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery in 2018/19

see also: 
Picture
Mark Frith: A Legacy of Ancient Oaks - an exhibition of drawings by Mark Frith - commissioned by Felix Dennis
HRH The Prince of Wales (1948 to date) 
Sponsored the development of 
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