| Royal Charles Steadman was a wax fruit modeler and botanical illustrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Originally from Portland, Maine, Steadman studied art in Boston at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and at Cowles Art School. He then studied jewelry design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he later taught, and became a commercial jewelry designer. His career with the USDA began in 1915 when he was selected as a pomological artist. Other USDA pomological artists during this era included Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Newton, Ellen Isham Schutt, and Elsie Lower. Steadman was later promoted to a more general botanical illustrator. He worked on common and exotic fruits and vegetables, depicting them both fresh and damaged from cold storage. Aside from illustrating, Steadman produced hollow wax fruit models for the USDA, and in 1932 created a patented method of strengthening his models by injecting them with liquid plaster and quickly rotating them to create an even coating inside the fruit. This reduced the possibility of breakage and heat damage while also adding weight to the models, which made them feel more realistic compared to their lightweight, purely wax counterparts. |
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