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1688–1732
**Robert Furber (c. 1674–1756)** was a British horticulturist, nurseryman, and writer based in Kensington, London, best known for pioneering the use of elaborate botanical illustrations in commercial seed catalogues.
Furber operated a successful nursery and became one of the first in England to produce a dedicated seed catalogue. His most celebrated project, *Twelve Months of Flowers* (1730), combined horticultural promotion with fine art. The work consisted of twelve large engravings, each depicting dozens of plants in bloom for a particular month, painted by the Flemish artist Pieter Casteels III and engraved by Henry Fletcher. These prints functioned simultaneously as decorative wall pieces and practical references for customers ordering plants and seeds from Furber’s nursery.
In 1732 Furber followed this success with *Twelve Months of Fruit* and the more general handbook *The Flower Garden Displayed*, further establishing his reputation for accurate, visually appealing botanical documentation. While Furber himself was not primarily a painter, his commissioning and publishing of these works placed him at the center of early eighteenth-century British botanical art.
Furber’s publications helped standardize plant nomenclature at a time when misidentification was common in the trade and influenced later botanical illustrators and nursery catalogues. His *Twelve Months of Flowers* remains a landmark in the history of both horticulture and decorative printmaking, with original impressions and later reproductions still prized by collectors and museums today.
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