Figures of the Most Beautiful, Useful and Uncommon Plants Described in the Gardeners Dictionary,

First edition. A lovely copy of one of the most decorative botanical works of the eighteenth century.

Born in south-east London, Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1722 until he was pressured to retire shortly before his death. According to the botanist Peter Collinson, who visited the physic garden in July 1764 and recorded his observation in his commonplace books, Miller 'has raised the reputation of the Chelsea Garden so much that it excels all the gardens of Europe for its amazing variety of plants of all orders and classes and from all climates...' Miller corresponded with other botanists, and obtained plants from all over the world, many of which he cultivated for the first time in England and is credited as their introducer. His knowledge of living plants, for which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was unsurpassed in breadth in his lifetime.

The Figures was intended as an accompaniment to Miller's The Gardeners Dictionary. This was one of the most popular gardening books of its time, affordable to a wide range of people because Miller kept the cost down by not including many illustrations. In the Figures Miller provided a most luxurious set of plates including a selection by Georg Dioysius Ehret, the greatest flower painter of the eighteenth century. It provides a superb record of plants in cultivation at the time, some very rare.

This copy belonged to Professor John Hutton Balfour (1808–1884), a prominent Scottish botanist who served as Professor of Botany at the University of Edinburgh. He was also the 7th Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) from 1845 to 1879.

First edition; 2 volumes, folio (44.5 x 28 cm); 300 original hand-coloured engraved plates, of which 2 are folding, after Ehret (16 plates), Miller, and others, small ownership blind stamp to the title of each volume, edges of both titles browned, occasional light spotting primarily in the margins, and some mild offsetting, but contents generally clean, new endpapers; nineteenth century green half morocco, recent marbled boards, spines gilt in compartments with tan morocco labels, a very good set.

Dunthorne 209; Great Flower Books p.121; Henrey 1097; Hunt, 566; Nissen 1378; Pritzel 6241; Stafleu TL2 6059.