Deborah Griscom Passmore — USDA Pomological Watercolors
180 restored plates, 1893–1919, from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — with a biography from the archival record.
Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840–1911) was the most prolific of the artists who painted for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pomological Watercolor Collection. She was born on 17 July 1840 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the youngest child of an Orthodox Quaker farming family, attended a Friends school, studied under several artists including Thomas Moran, and trained at the School of Design for Women and the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. After about a year in Europe, where Marianne North’s botanical paintings at Kew impressed her, she taught in Philadelphia until W. W. Corcoran persuaded her to open a studio in Washington.
In 1892 she joined the USDA’s Division of Pomology and painted fruit there for nineteen years. The National Agricultural Library credits her with over a thousand sheets, more than any other contributor, and her work was reproduced as colour plates in the department’s Yearbook between 1902 and 1911. She also painted flowers and cacti — some printed in Britton and Rose’s The Cactaceae — showed work at the 1876 Centennial and 1893 Columbian expositions, and taught privately. Prints of her Calamondin orange, Miller raspberry and Steptoe plum hang in the National Agricultural Library’s main reading room. She died at home in Washington on 3 January 1911.
The plates
Every plate in our restored set credited to Deborah Griscom Passmore, by fruit then variety. Each has its own anchor (for example #ananas-reinette-apple). This is our holding, not the painter’s complete output; the National Agricultural Library holds the rest.
By period
1890–1899 · 74 plates
74 plates in this set from the 1890s: pears (26), stone fruit (24), apples (13).
Black Sweet Apple · Dixon Apple · Doctor Noyes Apple · Dove Apple · Early Breakfast Apple · Early Chandler Apple · Ingram Apple · Iowa Flat Apple · Lancaster Greening Apple · Mamma Apple · Noyes Apple · Oconee Greening Apple · Sweet Orange Apple · Abbesse Cherry · Amarelle Bunt Cherry · Dikeman Cherry · Duraccia Cherry · English Morello Cherry · Geer Cherry · Golden Beauty Cherry · Oerman Cherry · Wabash Cherry · Toulousienne Fig · Industry Gooseberry · Charlton Grape · Concord Grape · Corsican Lemon · du Roi Orange · Pineapple Orange · Bequett Free Peach · Brigdon Peach · Connetts Southern Early Peach · Dixie Peach · Robertson Peach · America Pear · Ansault Pear · Arbre Courbe Pear · Ayer Pear · Bergamotte Heitrich Pear · Beurre D' Hiver Pear · Coles Winter Pear · Conkleton Pear · Dorsett Pear · Doyenne D' Alencon Pear · Doyenne Dete Pear · Duchess de Bourdeaux Pear · Duhamel du Monceau Pear · Edmundo Pear · Erwin Pear · Figue D'Alencon Pear · Florida Pear · Frederick Clapp Pear · French Jargonelle Pear · Gray Doyenne Pear · Reading Winter Pear · Snyder Pear · Sudduth Pear · Summer Beauty Pear · Superfine Pear · Texas Iron Clad Pear · Dosch Prune Plum · Dunlaps No. 2 Plum · Golden Plum · Kingston Plum · Marunka Plum · Miner Plum · Palmer Plum · Sirocco Plum · Steinman No. 2 Plum · Steptoe Plum · Gault Raspberry · Miller Raspberry · Dew Strawberry · Ella Strawberry
1900–1909 · 91 plates
91 plates in this set from the 1900s: stone fruit (31), apples (18), pears (11).
Ananas Reinette Apple · Candil Sinap Apple · Doctor Briggs Apple · Dominion Winter Apple · Doyleston Apple · Dudley Winter Apple · Dunlap Apple · Hackworth Apple · Magog Apple · Marengo Apple · Ohio Ladyfinger Apple · Oliver Red Apple · Olympia Apple · Van Foedenberg Apple · Willow Apple · Windsor Apple · Winter Cheese Apple · Blenheim Apricot · Coles Hemskirk Apricot · Moorpark Apricot · Early Avocado · Mexican No. 36 Avocado · Early Purple Cherry · Flinn Cherry · Silas Gto Citrus · Un-Shu Citrus · Kentucky Crab Apple · Perfection Gooseberry · Ribesgros Abenarius Gooseberry · Black Ferrara Grape · Brighton X Cambells Early Grape · Chasselas Fontainbleau Grape · Clevener Grape · Delaware X Gov. Ross Grape · San Jacinto Grape · Sawignon Vert Grape · Smiths Improved Grape · Sultanina Rosea Grape · Bayly Grapefruit · Ellen Grapefruit · General Gordon Mango · Conners Seedling Orange · Golden Buckeye Orange · Thornton No. 5 Orange · Amsden Peach · Berry Peach · Bilyer Peach · Camalia Peach · Connecticut Peach · Golden Glow Peach · Johnsons Early Peach · Longhurst Peach · Plant Cling Peach · Reeds Golden Peach · Reeves Favorite Peach · Selah Peach · Suber Peach · Willett Peach · Arnold Pear · Bartlett Pear · Belle Angevine Pear · Beurre Baltet Pear · Clapp Pear · Crassane Bergamot Pear · Crawford W. Long Pear · Doyenne Jamain Pear · Early Harvest Pear · Forella Birne Pear · Triumph Pear · Axtill Persimmon · Godbeys Seedless Persimmon · Tane Nashi Persimmon · Berger Plum · Burbank No. 2 Plum · Doris Plum · Goosedye Plum · Kelso Plum · Normand Plum · North Star Plum · Pacific Prune Plum · Shiro Plum · Splendor Plum · Thanksgiving Prune Plum · Weaver Plum · Conrath Raspberry · Winfield Raspberry · Armstrong Strawberry · Princess Ena Strawberry · Prosperity Strawberry · Rough Rider Strawberry · Ruby Strawberry
1910–1919 · 5 plates
5 plates in this set from the 1910s: stone fruit (2), berries (1), citrus (1).
Cerise de Montmorency Cherry · Elkhorn Cherry · Calamondian Citrus · Zengi Maru Persimmon · Abingdon Strawberry
Undated · 10 plates
Coxs Orange Pippin Apple · Nusia Apple · Chasselas Dore Grape · Chasselas Negropont Grape · Tsun Tsun Grape · Bishops Favorite Orange · Bartlett Select Pear · Chinese Quince · Djare Diva Quince · Cardinal Raspberry
Plates per year (this set)
Sources & citation
- Deborah Griscom Passmore Watercolors — National Agricultural Library Special Collections (biographical note)
- Deborah Griscom Passmore — NAL ArchivesSpace finding aid MS0124
- Deborah Griscom Passmore — Wikipedia
- Deborah Griscom Passmore — Linda Hall Library, Scientist of the Day
- White, J. & Neumann, A. (1982), 'The collection of pomological watercolors at the U.S. National Arboretum', Huntia 4(2): 103–124 — Appendix I, 'Some U.S.D.A. artists'
- Pomological Watercolor Collection — Wikipedia (per-artist counts, citing the National Agricultural Library)
- Watercolor paintings by Deborah Griscom Passmore — Wikimedia Commons (the NAL digitisation)
- USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — National Agricultural Library (the originals, with catalogue records)
- USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — finding aid (NAL ArchivesSpace MS0184)
- The collection on Wikimedia Commons
The original watercolours are in the public domain. The restorations shown here are Madten’s, at web resolution. 10 plates carry no year on the record. To cite this page: Madten, “Deborah Griscom Passmore — USDA Pomological Watercolors,” https://www.madten.com/reference/deborah-griscom-passmore-usda-watercolors, 2026-10-29.