Digitizing Project:
Flowering plants from the gardens of Lord Bute at Luton Hoo

TAYLOR, SIMON (English, 1742-1796)
Flowering plants from the gardens of Lord Bute at Luton Hoo
Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, circa 1770

Manuscript consists of 46 bodycolors and watercolors on vellum, measuring approximately 19 ½ x 13 3/8 inches, all mounted on sheets of paper with watercolor-ruled borders. All inscribed with the plant name and numbered 1-46. Rebound in original full red morocco; gilt; a.e.g.; arms of Earl of Bute stamped in gilt. On leather labels on spine: "Plants by Taylor." In a half vellum and decorative paper box-case. Spine height: 26 inches.

Provenance: John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1713-1792). This volume of 46 watercolors was included in a lot of 15 volumes, containing 690 botanical paintings by Simon Taylor, sold by Leith and Sotheby at an auction of the Bute collection in 1794 (Catalogue of the Botanical and Natural History Part of the Library of the Late John Earl of Bute sold by Auction by Leigh and Sotheby, London, May 8, 1794, pp. 60-63.

The plants represented belong to the families of docks, sages, heaths, smilaxes and saxifrages, primroses, gentians, antholyza, digitalis, etc. Each is identified by the artist with its Latin appellation. Undoubtedly, all grew in the botanical gardens of the Earl of Bute at Luton Hoo (built in 1767). Bute, who was prime minister to George III, 1761-1763, was a botanical expert in his own right at the same time that he was a great patron of arts and letters and a renowned bibliophile. He died in 1792.

According to Thieme-Becker, XXXII, 495, Simon Taylor worked for Lord Bute from 1760 on. Taylor was a student of William Shipley (1714-1803). After his employ by Lord Bute, the chief duty of which was to make the paintings of this collection, he was employed at similar tasks by Dr. John Fothergill (1712-1780) at his botanical garden at Upton, near Stratford.

See: An Oak Spring Flora, pages 204-206 (plate 2, Crambe fruiticosa, illustrated on page 205).

Also, visit The Walled Garden ~ Lutton Hoo website.