Louis Charles Christopher Krieger — USDA Pomological Watercolors

36 restored plates, 1918–1939, from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — with a biography from the archival record.

Louis Charles Christopher Krieger (1873–1940) was an American botanical illustrator and mycologist, born in Baltimore on 11 February 1873. Enrolled at the Maryland Institute School of Art and Design at thirteen, he later studied at Baltimore’s Charcoal Club and, in 1895–96, at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. At eighteen he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Division of Microscopy as an artist assistant, painting the mushrooms of the Washington area until the division was abolished in 1895. From 1902 to 1912 he painted fungi for W. G. Farlow at Harvard, then illustrated prickly pears for David Griffiths at the USDA garden in Chico, California, and from 1918 produced a second great series of mushroom paintings for Dr Howard A. Kelly of Baltimore.

His 1920 National Geographic article “Common Mushrooms of the United States” carried sixteen of his colour plates, and his Popular Guide to the Higher Fungi of New York State (1935) was reissued as The Mushroom Handbook (1936). Returning to the USDA in 1929, he painted bulbs, plant diseases and fruit until his death in Washington on 31 July 1940; about eighty of his fruit watercolours — apples, citrus and stone fruit of the 1930s — are in the Pomological Watercolor Collection.

The plates

Every plate in our restored set credited to Louis Charles Christopher Krieger, by fruit then variety. Each has its own anchor (for example #landakergska-apple). This is our holding, not the painter’s complete output; the National Agricultural Library holds the rest.

Fruit	Variety	Year	Plate
Apple	Landakergska	1939
Citrus	Indian River	1936
Citrus	Pineapple Orange	1936
Citrus	Temple	1936
Grape	Rogers No. 13	—
Mango	Gola Alphonse	1918
Peach	Barnard	1936
Peach	Butter Cup	1933
Peach	Cumberland	1936
Peach	Early Rose	1936
Peach	Elberta	1933
Peach	Ford Valley	1939
Peach	Halberta	1936
Peach	Hale Haven	1936
Peach	June Elberta	1936
Peach	Leeton	1937
Peach	Libbee X Foster	1935
Peach	Marquette	1936
Peach	Mountain Rose	1936
Peach	New Jersey	1937
Peach	Number 10	1938
Peach	Number 11	—
Peach	Paloro X Foster	1935
Peach	Rochester	1936
Peach	South Haven	1936
Peach	Uneeda	1936
Peach	Veteran	1936
Pear	Michigan U.S. 431	1936
Pear	Michigan U.S. 504	1936
Pear	Michigan U.S. 550	1936
Plum	Diamond	1935
Plum	Grand Duke	1935
Plum	Gueii	1939
Plum	Italian Prune	1939
Plum	President	1935
Plum	Stanley	1936

By period

Plates per year (this set)

Sources & citation

• Stevenson, J. A. (1941), 'Louis Charles Christopher Krieger', Mycologia 33(3): 241–247
• Louis C. C. Krieger — Wikipedia
• Krieger, Louis Charles Christopher — Hunt Institute biographical record
• Louis Charles Christopher Krieger — Database of Scientific Illustrators 1450–1950, University of Stuttgart
• 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 Louis Charles Christopher Krieger — 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. 2 plates carry no year on the record. To cite this page: Madten, “Louis Charles Christopher Krieger — USDA Pomological Watercolors,” https://www.madten.com/reference/louis-c-c-krieger-usda-watercolors, 2026-10-29.