Pl 671 BLACK BELLY Cheyenne 1927 Envelope Gravure

EDWARD S. CURTIS. Plate 671 Black Belly - Cheyenne, 1927. 15.3x11.3" photogravure on 16.8x12.8" paper mounted on 19x16" paper envelope. Printed 1930. From Portfolio 19, Indians of Oklahoma, of The North American Indian. Inscribed in ink on print recto: Plate 671 / Black Belly - Cheyenne / From Copyright Photograph 1927 by E.S. Curtis / Photogravure Suffolk Eng. Co. Cambridge Mass.; miscellaneous printer's marks in red pencil. Inscribed in ink on envelope recto: North American Indian / Vol. XIX / 41195 / March 1978.

Curtis wrote about this. "The extreme age of this Cheyenne is quite apparent."

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 as well as written title information that was to be engraved into the plates and printed on the prints. There are 29 Envelope plate photogravures offered in various lots in this auction. Each plate was attached to the envelope. 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.