Description
Born in Montana, in 1858, Horse Capture was a fierce warrior who achieved various honors in battle. He wears a leather shirt with perforated designs and split sleeves. He carries his medicine bundle draped from his neck adorned with feathers. His brass bead necklace incorporates two large bear claws. His hair is elegantly braided and side-knotted and adorned with a number of feathers. His hexagonal barrel carbine is adorned with fringed leather. Horse Capture counted the first coup at an early age. He married at the age of twenty-five. His tribe, the Atsina, commonly designated Gros Ventres of the Prairie, are of the Algonquian stock and a branch of the Arapaho. Among his descendants are a prominent Native American scholar and a widely respected curator.
This vintage photogravure is in excellent overall condition. There are three very minor creases, (each approximately 0.75”/1.9 cm) at the left margin of image created when the print was professionally backed with archival gampi paper. Historic watermark, “Van Gelder Zonen”, in left margin of vintage overmat. Excellent, rich impression, and a fine example of the photogravure process. This photogravure was professionally washed and de-acidified to restore it to its original archival state and beauty.
This original vintage photogravure is printed on handmade Japanese gampi (“tissue”) paper. This is the rarest and most expensive of the three original paper stocks chosen by Curtis and J.P. Morgan for Curtis’ North American Indian project. Only Morgan and a few others paid the substantial premium to get the rare tissue edition. Tissue prints are noted for their subtlety, luminosity, and strength. Gampi papermaking is a millennia-old tradition in Japan and the art is often handed down within a family from generation to generation over hundreds of years.
