PLATE 574 PAGUATE Proof Envelope Gravure

EDWARD S. CURTIS. Plate 574 Paguate, 1925. 11.5x15.5" photogravure on 13x17.3" Holland Van Gelder paper mounted on tattered paper envelope remnants. Printed 1926. From Portfolio 16, Pueblo Indians, of The North American Indian. Inscribed in ink on print recto: Plate 574 / 574 / Paguate / 31 (circled) / From Copyright Photograph 1925 by E.S. Curtis / Photogravure Suffolk Eng. Co. Cambridge Mass.; in pencil: I will have to draw in the sky / Tint about this height - no heavier; various printer's marks. Inscribed in ink on envelope recto: North American Indian / Vol XVI.

Curtis wrote about this: "Paguate is the oldest and largest of ten villages subsidiary to Laguna, the patent pueblo of this group. It appears to have been founded about the middle of the eighteenth century. Laguna itself dates from 1699. The two-story structure at the right, one of the two oldest buildings at Paguate, was a watchtower erected for the defense of the farming population from the roving Navaho, who disputed possession of this locality."

This print contains a note of having the printer draw in the sky in the plate and add more tint.

To make the photogravure prints from the negative Curtis created a positive, that he would edit on and then working with the great photogravure printing companies in Boston, John Andrew & Son that became Suffolk Engraving Company, they made over 2200 copper plates from which the photogravures were to be printed. Each plate was stored in an envelope that had a Holland Van Gelder Photogravure attached to it of the copper plate it housed, written title information that was to be engraved into the plates and printed on the prints. They also had notes pointing out flaws that needed to be corrected on the copper plates themselves before the final prints were pulled. There are 29 Envelope plate photogravures offered in various lots in this auction. The envelopes themselves only partially survived, tattered and torn.
Condition Report: Fair to Poor. Print surface is dirty, creased, spotted with printer's ink, and has tears throughout. The envelope is torn and tattered.