Joseph Prestele and Sons

Although he worked for such esteemed botanists as John Torrey and Asa Gray and artist Isaac Sprague, 19th century botanical artist, Joseph Prestele, is not well known. As a member of the Amana Society, Sprague did not sign his work, so it was often attributed to the printers who distributed it. The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation has prepared an exhibit of the life and work of Joseph Prestele and his three sons, Joseph Jr., Gottlieb and William Henry, who followed in their father's footsteps.

Born in Germany in 1796, Joseph Prestele brought his family to the US and eventually they settled in Amana, Iowa as members of The Community of True Inspiration, a communal religious organization. A master of lithography or stone engraving, Prestele continued producing botanical drawings, as he had done in Germany. His three sons also became artists, illustrating the works of botanists and the catalogs of nurserymen. William Henry was hired by the US department of Agriculture, where he created a series of pomological watercolours.

The exhibition, Inspiration and Translation: Botanical and Horticultural Lithographs of Joseph Prestele and Sons, runs until December 22, 2005 at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University.

Links:

• Hunt Institute exhibit plucks botanical artists from obscurity from Pittsburgh Live


• Inspiration and Translation - Botanical and Horticultural Lithographs of Joseph Prestele and Sons from the Hunt Institute Exhibition Schedule


• The Papers of Wilhelm Heinrich (William Henry) Prestele 1887-1891 from the Special Collections of The National Agricultural Library
  


• Selected Work of Artist William Henry Prestele from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, Special Collections of The National Agricultural Library

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 2:11 PM on October 17, 2005

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