Artists include: Deborah Griscom Passmore ; Amanda Almira Newton ; Mary Daisy Arnold ; Royal Charles Steadman ; James Marion Shull ; Ellen Isham Schutt ; Bertha Heiges ; Elsie E. Lower ; William Henry Prestele ; Louis Charles Christopher Krieger, M. Strange ; Harriet Thompson ; Frank Muller ; Roberta Cowing ; Henry Van Deman ; J. F. Brewer ; W. L. Burn ; Katherine Mayo ; Eliza Swann ; Charles Hopkins ; J. Sedgwick
Bibliographic Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 380-381) and index
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pomological Watercolor Collection contains 7,584 watercolor paintings of cultivated fruit and nut varieties, alongside speciments gathered around the world and introduced by USDA plant explorers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These remarkable, botanically accurate watercolors were painted by twenty-one professional artists (including ten women) employed by the USDA between 1886 and 1942. Produced largely before the widespread use of photography, the watercolors were created and published to aid identification and examination of fruit varieties for the nation's fruit growers