Miller Persimmmon small antique fruit print. Passmore c1907.

by Passmore, Deborah Grisscom

Lovely Miller Persimmons antique print. Artist, D.G. Passmore, c1907.

Original colour-printed lithograph by botanical artist Deborah Grisscom Passmore (1840-1911), printed in New York by the American Lithographic Company for the 1909 Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture. Deborah Passmore received a strict Quaker education in Delaware, and then moved to Philadelphia to study at the School of Design and Academy of Fine Arts.  She was a fine botanical artist who worked in the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Division of Pomology for 19 years.

Between 1897 and 1920 Yearbooks were published to illustrate the wide range of fruit produced in the United States. From 1905 to 1925, the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station published a series of seven monographs on hardy fruits as part of their annual report.  Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick (1870-1951), continued the series over a period of 18 years, with larger photolithographs for six volumes on grapes, plums, cherries, peaches, pears and small fruits. As they were published essentially to promote the growing of fruit in the United States, there was not an enormous circulation, so these beautiful illustrations are rarely seen today.

The smaller chromolithographs for the early editions like this one, all measured 23 x 14cm (9 x 5.5 inches).