Edward S. Curtis "A Walker Lake Paviotso" 1926 Vintage Photogravure, Cardozo Collection

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Photographed in 1924 and published in 1926 with Portfolio XV of The North American Indian, this large folio photogravure is … Read more Photographed in 1924 and published in 1926 with Portfolio XV of The North American Indian, this large folio photogravure is one of the finest of Curtis's late Great Basin portraits — a close, monumental head study of a Numu (Northern Paiute) man of Walker Lake, Nevada, recorded under the ethnographic term of Curtis's era, Paviotso.

The sitter is wrapped in a rabbit-skin robe, the quintessential Great Basin garment — strips of fur twisted around cordage and woven into a blanket, an ancient technology of the region. Curtis shot it close and shallow, letting the robe dissolve into softness while the face carries the full tonal range of the plate, from bright desert light to deep umber shadow. This is the mature Curtis portrait style at full strength, rendered in the velvety continuous tone that only hand-pulled photogravure achieves.

The setting carries real historical weight: Walker Lake is the homeland of the Agai Dicutta ("Trout Eater") band of Northern Paiute, and the wider Walker River country was home to Wovoka, the Numu prophet whose 1889 vision gave rise to the Ghost Dance movement. Curtis's Great Basin portraits document this community within living memory of that history.

This is a vintage impression from the original 1907–1930 publication, printed by the Suffolk Engraving Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts — the firm responsible for the later volumes — on the heavy cream wove sheet cataloged by the Cardozo Collection as Holland Van Gelder, one of the three papers used for original subscriber sets. Full margins, natural deckled edges, and a crisp intaglio plate mark. Material from the later portfolios is meaningfully scarcer than the early installments, as subscriptions dwindled through the 1920s and fewer sets were completed. This is not a 1970s-era restrike, which were printed on modern papers such as Arches and Rives BFK.

Provenance is as strong as single-owner provenance gets in the Curtis market: the Christopher G. Cardozo Collection. Cardozo (1948–2021) was the foremost Curtis collector, dealer, and scholar of his generation — author of Sacred Legacy and numerous standard references. This plate retains its Cardozo inventory number, CCI-1741, in pencil on the verso, along with the collection's cataloging label.

A powerful, honest example of Curtis's late portraiture, from the most significant Curtis collection ever assembled. Ready to frame. See less