He set up as a lithographer in Iowa City and practiced this trade for a decade or so. On August 1, 1887, he was appointed as the first artist on the staff of the recently formed Pomological Division of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. He was assigned to make life-size watercolors of native grapes intended as illustrations for a monograph by Thomas Volney Munson of Denison, Texas, a leading authority on native grapes. He worked from live and dried specimens sent to him by Munson, making color sketches of details that Munson would then review; Prestele would then use these detail drawings would to create a life-size painting of the species. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture eventually decided the cost of printing the monograph with the illustrations would be prohibitive, so it was never published in its intended form, though Munson went on to use the text he wrote as the foundation for his highly regarded book "Foundations of American Grape Culture". Munson's book was illustrated with photographs instead of with Prestele's watercolors, which remained in the collection of the USDA. Prestele's paintings are noted for their naturalness and attention to botanical accuracy. Over a hundred of his watercolors of grapes and other fruit are held in the National Agricultural Library's Pomological Watercolor Collection. He died in Arlington, Virginia on August 16, 1895, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. A collection of his papers spanning the years 1887-1891 is held by the USDA National Agricultural Library Special Collections and comprises original watercolors and drawings, plant specimens, and other materials, including work related to the planned Munson monograph.