18th Century Flower Sellers

Last updated: Jan 5, 2024

Selling cut flowers

Why would people buy flowers from a peddler on the street? Many of these flower sellers are selling small bunches of cut flowers as nosegays. These could be worn by women (Mary Little, a lady in a pink dress) or men (e.g. The City 'Prentice at his Master’s door, Buckles and Buttons), or just carried around (An Edinburgh auction, Ensign Rosebud reposing himself).

The Nosegay, a story from a 1797 children’s book, describes twin sisters who set off to the florist to buy themselves nosegays: “Fanny and Sophia were again invited to the houſe of a lady, whom, as Fanny regarded her as a perſon of grate taſte, ſhe was deſirous to pleaſe her by appearance. She put on all her little finery, but found that one thing was neceſſary to complete her dreſs, which was a Noſegay, and this ſhe was determined to buy when they reached the town … Fanny could talk of nothing but calling at the floriſt’s, and of the elegant Noſegay with which ſhe ſhould be adorned.”

• Crit de Paris, 1675-1714
• Flower-seller by Edme Bouchardon, 1730s
• London Cries: Flowers by Paul Sandby
• Will your Honour buy a sweet nosegay or a Memorandum book, by Paul Sandby, 1760
• A West Indian flower girl and two other free women of color by Agostino Brunias, c. 1769
• The polite Maccaroni presenting a nosegay to Miss Blossom, 1772
• Cris de Paris: Des beaux bouquets pour mettre dans les pots, 1774-1775
• Cries of London, 1780
• The Nosegay Girl, 1780s-1800s
• Primrose Girl (Phoebe Hoppner), 1785
• The Flower Girl, 1785
• A bouquet seller, 1786
• Cries of London: Two bunches a penny, primroses two bunches a penny, 1793
• The nosegay girl, 1793
• St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden by Thomas Sandby
• Buy my moss roses dainty sweet briar, 1801
• Primroses! in The New Cries of London, 1803
• Mother Goose of Oxford (Rebecca Howse) / Aged 73, 1811
• Buy my moss roses or dainty sweet briar by Thomas Rowlandson, 1811

Selling garden plants

• The Flower Seller by Thomas Rowlandson
• All a growing, a growing, heres Flowers for your Gardens by Thomas Rowlandson, 1799
• Flowers for your Garden! in The New Cries of London, 1803