Downing's Everbearing Mulberry

Botanical print: gouache over lithograph. Three predominate leaves on a branch with eight elongated purple mulberries below leaves.

Joseph Prestele was a German immigrant who immigrated to America as a part of the Inspirationists, who believed that the dominant Lutheran Church had become too distant and formal. Prestele studied flower painting in Vienna and was the artist for the Royal Botanical Garden of Munich. Joseph was a very talented artist and lithographer, but he never would have acknowledged it because any talent they had belonged to God.