EDWARD S. CURTIS. Plate 456 Klamath Lake Marshes, 1923. 11.5x15.3" photogravure on 14x17" Holland Van Gelder paper mounted on envelope remnants. Print date 1924. From Portfolio 13, Northern California and Southern Oregon, of The North American Indian. Inscribed in pencil on plate recto: Klamath Lake Marshes / From Copyright Photograph 1923 by E.S. Curtis / Photogravure Suffolk Eng. Co. Cambridge Mass. / Mts / various printer's inscriptions in top margin [illegible]; in ink: 456 / 3908-a. Inscribed in ink on envelope recto: 81663 / 2-1-24 / Klamath Lake Marshes.

Curtis wrote about this: "Fairly extensive marshes occur along the shores of Klamath lake, and Klamath marsh covers about a hundred square miles. These areas are the resort of innumerable waterfowl, which were of great importance to the aboriginal Klamath, and thousands of acres were a mass of water-lilies, which yielded in abundance an edible seed."

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.

Fair. Corner and edge wear, tears, and image loss. Print surface is dirty, creased, and spotted with printer's ink. The envelope is dirty, torn, and tattered.