It was discovered on 23 November 1948, by French astronomer Marguerite Laugier at Nice Observatory in south-eastern France.

[2] Steinmetz orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.1–3.2 AU once every 4 years and 5 months (1,617 days).

[1] In December 2006, Italian amateur astronomer Silvano Casulli obtained a rotational lightcurve of Steinmetz from photometric observations.

[4][5] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.10 and calculates a diameter of 20.49 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.56.

[3] According to a proposal by Otto Kippes, who verified the discovery, this minor planet was named after Julius Steinmetz (1893–1965), a German amateur astronomer, orbit computer, and pastor from Gerolfingen in Bavaria.