William Henry Prestele — USDA Pomological Watercolors

10 restored plates, 1888–1894, from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — with a biography from the archival record.

Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Prestele (1838–1895) was born on 13 October 1838 in Hessen-Darmstadt, Germany, the son of Joseph Prestele, a painter-lithographer who had been head gardener to King Ludwig I of Bavaria. The family emigrated in 1843 with the Community of True Inspiration, settling at Ebenezer, New York, and moving in 1858 to the Amana Colonies in Iowa, where William learned lithography in his father’s trade. After Civil War service as a private in the 26th New York Infantry he drew nurserymen’s plates for the Bloomington Nursery in Illinois (1867–71), published fruit and flower prints with L. B. Littlefield, and from 1875 ran his own lithography business in Iowa City, whose 1879 catalogue listed 472 plates.

On 1 August 1887 he became the first staff artist of the USDA’s new Division of Pomology, where he painted fruit for the department’s record and, above all, life-size watercolours of the native North American grape species for T. V. Munson’s monograph — completed by 1891 but never printed for want of funds. More than a hundred of his watercolours remain in the Pomological Watercolor Collection. He died at Arlington, Virginia, on 16 August 1895 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The plates

Every plate in our restored set credited to William Henry Prestele, by fruit then variety. Each has its own anchor (for example #lady-washington-sweet-apple). This is our holding, not the painter’s complete output; the National Agricultural Library holds the rest.

Fruit	Variety	Year	Plate
Apple	Lady Washington Sweet	1894
Apple	Lamb Abbey Pearmain	1888
Apple	Moore Extra	1894
Apple	Oakland	1894
Gooseberry	Jewett	1894
Plum	Ogon	1894
Quince	Bourgeat	—
Raspberry	Ferndale	1893
Strawberry	California	1892
Strawberry	Enhance	1891

By period

Plates per year (this set)

Sources & citation

• Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Prestele Papers — National Agricultural Library Special Collections
• Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Prestele Prints, MS 70 — Iowa State University Library finding aid
• USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — NAL ArchivesSpace MS0184 (‘the first staff artist … was William Prestele’)
• William Henry Prestele — Wikipedia
• 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 William Henry Prestele — Wikimedia Commons (the NAL digitisation)
• USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection — National Agricultural Library (the originals, with catalogue records)
• The collection on Wikimedia Commons

The original watercolours are in the public domain. The restorations shown here are Madten’s, at web resolution. 1 plate carries no year on the record. To cite this page: Madten, “William Henry Prestele — USDA Pomological Watercolors,” https://www.madten.com/reference/william-henry-prestele-usda-watercolors, 2026-10-29.