José Ortiz Echagüe Furniture

Sepia photogravure titled "The Parade - Apsaroke" depicting Native Americans on their horses with teepees in the background. The photogravure is titled in plate lower left "The Para...

Sepia photogravure titled "Atsina War-Party" depicting Native Americans on their horses over-looking the grasslands in the distance. The photogravure is titled in plate lower left "A...

Modernist nude photogravure. Circa 1910. Nicely framed and matted. Silver leaf frame.

Presented is a beautiful photogravure showing a Klamath man hunting from a dugout canoe. This image is Plate 458 from Volume 13 of Edward Curtis' epic project The North American Indian. The photogravure was published in 1923 by Suffolk Engr. Co., in Cambridge, MA. The Klamath people are from the inland region of Northern California and Southern Oregon. Their oral history records the volcanic eruption that created Crater Lake over 7000 years ago Edward S. Curtis created one of the most enduring and iconic visual records in the history of the photographic medium. He was an award-winning artist, a consummate craftsman, a visionary, an intrepid entrepreneur, and was highly regarded as a respected ethnographer and publisher. Curtis began photographing Native Americans in the mid-1890s and selling these images in his successful downtown Seattle studio. One of his earliest models was Princess Angeline, the aged daughter of chief Sealth, the Suquamish Indian after whom Seattle is named. At the National Photographic Convention of 1899 Curtis was awarded the grand prize for three of his soft-focused, sepia-toned images of Puget Sound Native Americans: Evening on the Sound, The Clam Digger, and The Mussel Gatherer. Curtis spent the summer of 1900 with George Bird Grinnell observing the Sun Dance at an encampment of Blood, Blackfeet, and Algonquin in Montana. This was a pivotal experience for Curtis, confirming his desire to study and photograph the Native tribes of North America. A trip to visit the Hopi reservation in Arizona a few months later further fueled his enthusiasm. Curtis envisioned a plan to create a massive scholarly and artistic work that would document the tribes west of the Mississippi, their ceremonies, beliefs, daily life, and landscapes. In 1906, Curtis approached railroad tycoon J.P. Morgan to request financial assistance for his project. Morgan agreed to pay him a total of $75,000, or $15,000 a year for five years. Morgan and Curtis decided that Curtis' masterwork, The North American Indian, would be a set of 20 volumes of ethnographic text illustrated with high quality photoengravings taken from his glass plate negatives. Each of these volumes would be accompanied by a portfolio of large size images, all sumptuously bound in Moroccan leather. The papers used for printing would also be of the best quality: a Dutch etching stock by Van Gelder, a Japanese vellum, and for the most discerning subscribers, a translucent Japanese tissue paper. To fund publication, Curtis would sell subscriptions at approximately $3,000 per set, with a total of 500 sets to be published. An ambitious and extensive project, Curtis spent much of his life documenting as many Native tribes as possible. The importance and the urgency of the task was clear to him, as he wrote in the introduction to his first volume of The North American Indians in 1907, "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost." In 1930, some 24 years after his initial request for funding, the last two volumes, Vol. 19 and Vol. 20, were published and The North American Indian project was finally completed. Curtis took over 40,000 photographs and made over 10,000 wax cylinder...

Sepia photogravure titled "Spotted Elk - Brule" depicting a portrait of Spotted Elk from the Brule tribe. The photogravure is titled lower left "Spotted Elk - Brule". Printed under t...

During the rule by the British Crown in India between 1858 and 1947, tiger-hunting was regarded as a royal sport. In the 19th century, tigers were plentiful throughout all the forest...

A set of botanical photogravures by Karl Blossfeldt (German, b. 1914 - d. 1932), "Urformen der Kunst", First Edition 1929, Berlin. Hung together, these make a very impressive and con...

Sepia photogravure titled "Tsipiai - Sia" depicting native women engaged in pottery making. The photogravure is titled lower left "Tsipiai - Sia". Printed under the photogravure "Fro...

Isabella Rossellini raises the most wonderful assortment of Heritage Chickens at her farm; on Long Island, NY and called The Farm. The above image is one of many photographs you wil...

Sepia photogravure titled "Touch Her Dress - Kalispel" depicting the portrait of a young native girl. The Kalispel Tribe from areas that encompassed lands that stretched from Montana...

Isabella Rossellini raises the most interesting assortment of Heritage Chickens on her farm on Long Island NY and is called. The farm. The above image is one of the many images you ...

Sepia photogravure titled "Zuni Pottery" depicting a collection of Zuni pottery on the ground set against a stone wall. The photogravure is titled lower l...