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Ellen Isham Schutt

Ellen Isham Schutt (April 15, 1873 – December 5, 1955) was an early 20th-century American botanical illustrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Her work now forms part of the USDA National Agricultural Library's Pomological Watercolor Collection.

Schutt worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, part of a select cadre of illustrators that included Deborah Griscom Passmore, Amanda Newton, Royal Charles Steadman, J. Marion Shull, and Elsie Lower. During this period, she painted over 700 watercolours of fruits and nuts for the USDA. Her subjects ranged from the common (apples, hickory nuts) to the then-exotic (bael, custard apple, cashew nuts), and quite a few show fruit damage from moulds, insects, and other causes. Her precise and rather dry style resulted in watercolours that at times look more like drawings than paintings. She signed her USDA watercolours 'E.I. Schutt'. She also modelled some fruit such as apples and pears in wax to demonstrate the effects of long storage and packaging upon fruit. She contributed a few drawings of plant specimens collected in Mexico to Britton and Rose's definitive work on cactus.